


Good Night and Joy be With You All

by LittleScribe



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Adoption, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Humor, As close to movie canon as possible, Awesome Bofur, Bofur likes making innuendos, Celtic Folksongs, Character Death, Cuddling & Snuggling, Cultural Differences, Domestic Boffins, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, First Time, Foreplay, Kissing, M/M, Making Love, Mentions of Violence, Minor Oc Characters, One Ring obsession, PTSD-based guilt, Paranoia, Poor Bilbo, Potatoes, Prejudice, Protective Bilbo, Protective Bofur, Relationship Problems, Romance, Sad Bilbo, Sad Bofur, Sassy Bilbo, Secret Relationship, Slow Build, Songs from the books, Sweet Bofur, Uncle Bofur, Wakes & Funerals, brief instance of abuse, movieverse, terminal illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-08
Updated: 2015-05-16
Packaged: 2018-03-11 03:19:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 32
Words: 88,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3311990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleScribe/pseuds/LittleScribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We all know Bofur wants to make Bilbo happy, but could growing too close make him the person who ends up hurting Bilbo the most? Can a hobbit and a dwarf who have survived war live happily together in the gossip-ridden Shire, or is Erebor where they truly belong?</p><p>What I find most interesting about Bilbo and Bofur as a couple, at least from a writing standpoint, is just how many potential problems their relationship has. Cultural/class/species differences, vastly different personalities, disapproval from friends and neighbors, Bilbo's trauma over Erebor, Bofur's questionable drinking habits, and of course, Bilbo having the One Ring. Add a few unexpected misfortunes here and there, and there could be some really compelling drama to be explored.</p><p>This is my take on a more realistic Domestic Boffins story, but don't worry. There's still going to be plenty of fluff and humor throughout!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Funeral and an Offer

The funeral of Thorin Oakenshield was not the first one Bilbo Baggins ever attended. It was, however, the first one he attended that had come far too soon.

The service was very much befitting of a dwarf king who had fallen defending his kingdom. It was held deep in the halls of Erebor, in a dark chamber filled with candles like a starry night sky, and the King Under the Mountain was laid out on an altar of green marble in its center. All of the blood and grit from that day’s battle had been cleaned from his face and his regal golden armor. His hands had been folded across his chest, and in them, by his people’s tradition, he held his most prized possession: the key to the mountain’s hidden door. 

Bilbo didn’t doubt that many of the people paying their respects wondered why Thorin had been given a key instead of the Arkenstone, the King’s Jewel, to carry with him into the next world. The hobbit knew full why, after all the grief that the cursed gem had caused the dwarf, but he said nothing to anyone about it. He didn’t care to ask what had become of the Arkenstone either. He only knew that Bard the Bowman from Laketown had returned it to Erebor in exchange for a share of the mountain’s treasure, holding to the bargain he had tried to make moments before the battle. Even that had been hard for Bilbo to hear.

He would never forget the look of betrayal that Thorin had cast on him that morning when his part in that bargain had been revealed. So much shock and sadness had filled those blue eyes, bottomless pain at the news that his dear little friend had stolen his heirloom and slipped it into the hands of the man he perceived as his enemy. Worse was the final glaze of madness that had swallowed that pain as the dwarf had tried to avenge himself on his treacherous burglar. Bilbo could only imagine the look in his own eyes when that had unfolded, though he was sure it had matched the fearful confusion in Fíli and Kíli’s when their uncle had commanded them to kill the halfling for him at first.

That recollection brought two more equally haunting ones.

Thorin was not the only dwarf being laid to rest that night; his beloved nephews each rested on an altar of their own on either side of him. The sight of their young and once lively faces now as still as the stone beneath them plagued Bilbo with the memories of their deaths. Poor Fíli, stabbed from behind by Azog the Defiler and then thrown to the ground far below like a worthless slaughtered fowl. Poor Kíli, run through by Azog’s minions and left lying in the snow for hours until anyone found him. For them, tonight’s funeral had come all the more too soon, and it was thanks to the failure of one who had tried so desperately to protect them.

The failure of Bilbo Baggins.

The hobbit supposed he couldn’t fault himself for the battle that had taken place. He had no hand in the sudden arrival of Azog’s forces. What he did fault himself for was leaving such an ugly wake before that with his foolish attempt to make peace between the dwarves and the men, and then reaching Ravenhill too late to warn Thorin, Fíli, and Kíli of the Pale Orc’s ambush. He had found them just in time to tell them of the danger and then watch it overtake them anyway. His one fleeting comfort after that had been Thorin’s friendly dying words to him, that the world would be a merrier place if more people valued home over gold. It was a life lesson that Oakenshield would never have the chance to make use of now, all because of a burglar too helpless to even succeed at his own meddling.

Many important figures attended the mournful proceedings. The wizard Gandalf the Grey stood behind Bilbo with a consoling hand on the halfling’s shoulder. By Gandalf’s side stood his fellow wizard Radagast the Brown and the skin-changer Beorn. Bard the Bowman was present as well, as was the elf king Thranduil from Mirkwood and his female captain of the guard, whose name Bilbo didn’t know. 

And of course, there were the dwarves. Eleven of them, Thorin’s cousin Dain Ironfoot and the ten surviving members of the late king’s company, stood across the chamber from the hobbit. Bilbo tried not to look at any of them throughout the funeral. His guilt and grief were so great that he couldn’t even bring himself to face Balin, who had become nearly as much of a mentor to him as Gandalf over the course of their journey. 

The only time he did spare any of them his attention was when he heard a muffled sob directly across from him. He lifted his head to spy Ori, the company’s youngest member, all but burying his face behind his journal in despair. The lad seemed ready to topple over from his heartache at any moment. Bilbo briefly watched as Dori and Nori placed supportive hands on their little brother’s shoulders, then another pang of guilt brought tears to his eyes and he moved them to the very next dwarf on their right.

Bofur.

The rascally miner had barely been recognizable since the battle. Gone was the sparkle in his eyes and the playful smile on his face, now replaced by a dull stare and an utterly lifeless frown. He wasn’t even wearing the silly fur hat that he normally sported like a trophy on his head. It had been in his hands from the moment his three companions were found among the slain.

Bilbo knew that Bofur and Thorin had seldom seen eye-to-eye on things—including himself—and as far as he knew, there had been no closure between them before the latter’s death. Bofur had always been close with Fíli and Kíli though, almost like a third brother. All of their deaths had surely hurt him, but it was Ori that he looked at in that moment instead of the deceased. He was clearly debating whether to help console the lad or to leave Ori’s brothers to it. In the end, he reluctantly stayed out of the family matter. 

That was when his somber gaze caught Bilbo’s across the room, and the hobbit quickly looked away.

After the attendees finished paying their respects to Thorin and his nephews, a shroud and a marble cover were placed over each body. As the final tradition, the sword Orcrist and the weapons of Fíli and Kíli were placed over the tombs of their wielders to protect them in their rest. No more harm would come to the last of Durin’s line.

Mr. Baggins sought privacy when there was nothing left to see.

* * *

Bilbo wasn’t entirely without comfort after the funeral, although the thing that he sought it from numbed his pain more than it healed it.

In the days following his escape from Gollum in the Misty Mountains, not one had passed where he hadn’t thought of the gold ring in his pocket. The magic little trinket had done him a world of good since he had found it, making him invisible to enemies whenever he wore it and taking his mind off of more worrisome things when he held it. This second “power” concerned him a bit, but tonight he was willing to embrace whatever it was. 

He was seated on the floor of a lonely corridor with his back against the wall. His sharp ears assured him that no one else was nearby. That was the way he usually preferred it when he felt like marveling at his ring, so he reached into his tattered blue jacket and retrieved the item. 

He only got a few minutes to revel in its smooth, shiny band before he heard footsteps clomping towards the corridor’s entrance. 

The ring was back in his pocket in a flash. Bilbo tensed slightly and turned to the doorway, ready to see the intruder along with a casual nod. He froze when the other person entered his view and stopped in the entranceway.

It was Bofur, still clasping his hat in his hands with a dismal expression. Bilbo could tell from the dwarf’s poised reaction that their encounter was not as much of a surprise for him. He had been searching for the hobbit.

Once again, the smaller figure averted his gaze. That meant little to Bofur, who seldom could take a hint. He carefully made his way over to sit against the opposite wall from the halfling. A long silence hung in the air between them.

“It wasn’t your fault, Bilbo,” the miner said in a hushed voice.

The hobbit couldn’t help sending him a surprised look. It was the first time he had heard Bofur speak since the battle. Sorrow had all but destroyed the former chatterbox. 

Tears filled Bilbo’s eyes when the words sank in, and he went back to staring at his knees in front of him. He didn’t believe the sentiment for an instant. Bofur watched him and grappled for something else to say. 

“Why did you come back?” the dwarf finally asked. “After you left the mountain and gave the stone to Bard, why did you return to us?”

It wasn’t an admonishment. Bilbo sensed from the other’s tone that it was merely a question. No doubt, it was one that had been weighing on Bofur’s mind all day.

“Because I didn’t want to leave the company,” was the simple reply.

“But you must have known Thorin would be angry when he learned the truth,” his companion gently scolded.

“Why did _you_ send me away from the mountain to begin with?” Bilbo deflected.

It was true. Bofur had approached the hobbit the previous night, on the eve of Thorin’s petty war, and whispered his blessing for his friend to escape from Erebor in the cover of darkness. He hadn’t known that Bilbo was planning to do so anyway, just to deliver the Arkenstone and then return, but he had given the little burglar permission to leave their company just the same.

Bilbo didn’t get an answer right away, so he continued. “And when...when Thorin did learn the truth...why did you help me escape him? You were the one who told me I was part of the company, and yet you sent me away twice.”

“And you came back twice,” Bofur noted flatly. “I think a pinch of dwarf stubbornness rubbed off on you.”

In spite of his misery, Bilbo let his tiniest laugh escape. Even in the worst of times, the miner still had a quip up his sleeve.

“Why did you do it, though?” he pressed on softly.

Bofur was the one to shy away this time. “You signed on to deal with the dragon, and it was dealt with. There was no reason for you to get tangled in what came after. It wasn’t something I wanted for you.”

He turned his head to stare down the corridor, and his rough voice wavered. “...Or for any of us.”

Bilbo immediately forgot his own misery. “Bofur, I—I’m so sorry for—”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for.” The dwarf faced him again and said a touch more firmly, “You didn’t do anything wrong, Bilbo.”

The words still weren’t taken to heart. The hobbit dropped his chin again, not wanting to respond to those statements. “Well in any case, I am grateful for what you’ve done.”

Something more troubled crept into Bofur’s eyes. “I’m grateful to you too.” His stare fell then with an unsteady breath. “But...I was sort of hoping that it might be more than gratitude between us.”

That lifted Bilbo’s chin again in a hurry. 

The other fidgeted with his hat. “I always admired how willing you were to see this quest through for us, even when you didn’t feel welcome.”

It took several beats for Bilbo to grasp what Bofur was getting at. When he thought he understood, he leapt to his feet looking appalled. His comrade stayed seated and nervously raised one hand in a halting gesture.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for that to sound the way it did.”

“Then what exactly are you suggesting?” Bilbo demanded, fresh tears stinging his eyes. He was starting to question the motive behind every good thing Bofur had ever done for him.

The dwarf raised his own gloomy eyes without a hint of pride. “I’m suggesting whatever’s to your liking. I care about you, Bilbo, I really do, and I hate to see you suffering like this. And I don’t very much like feeling this way myself, to speak the truth.” His gaze faltered. “Whatever there _is_ between us...I’d rather we spent the night together than alone.”

The shorter being stared at him for what felt like an eternity. Bilbo’s disgust faded to uncertainty, but he never said anything. He tried to once, then he clenched his jaw shut and stormed out of the corridor with his hand in his pocket.

* * *

To say that the hobbit outright dismissed Bofur’s offer would have been a lie. He spent a great deal of time thinking about it, in fact. It took two contemplative hours of wandering the crumbled stone halls of Erebor before he came to his decision. 

Of all thirteen dwarves in Thorin’s company, he would say that Bofur had grown on him the fastest. It was hard not to find something enjoyable about the miner with his sunny disposition, his love of music, and his bounty of mischievous antics. Those antics had only distressed Bilbo for a short while before he had come to recognize them as signs of endearment. If Bofur didn’t care for someone, he left them be; pranks and jests were for the people he liked enough to think about aggravating, and he had aggravated the fussy Mr. Baggins quite a bit throughout their quest. 

What had impressed him about the hatted dwarf even more than Bofur’s silliness had been his sincerity. He may not have been the only member of the company to protect and look after Bilbo on the journey, but he had done so the most, and never grudgingly like the others. He had been fond of their Shireling from the beginning, yet Bilbo had been too miserable to see that until he had hurt his guardian.

That fateful confrontation in the Misty Mountains still haunted the hobbit. As if it hadn’t been disgraceful enough of him to try to abandon the others in the dead of night, he had literally added insult to the injury by lashing out at Bofur. He could still picture how all of the warmth and care had fallen from the dwarf’s face when his kind little charge had hissed that his kind didn’t belong anywhere. It was the same desolate face he wore now for his fallen friends. 

Bilbo had given Bofur the perfect opportunity to be cruel to him that night. The dwarf would have had an even better reason than Thorin to be that way, but he had chosen to be kind instead. He had wished the halfling all the luck in the world, and the twinkle in his eyes had shown that he had meant it. 

As it happened, fate had intervened in Bilbo’s departure and soon brought him back to the company, along with his good sense. He had been grateful to Bofur ever since.

But was that truly all he had been?

Tonight’s offer wasn’t as forward as it had seemed at first. Bofur had left the nature of it entirely up to Bilbo, and he had expressed more concern for his friend’s well-being than for his own desires. What bothered the hobbit about the whole business was the question of what either of their desires might be. More importantly, would it be wise to act on them so suddenly?

Bilbo was no stranger to intimacy, of course. No hobbit raised sensibly could live to the age of fifty-one years without at least knowing what to expect from lovemaking, although he had never engaged in the deed himself. Such a thing wasn’t proper outside of the most serious relationships, he had been taught, and “proper” was the last thing he would call what was being considered tonight. Putting aside how shortly he had known Bofur, the notion of two males being together befuddled him to no end. How was _that_ deed expected to work?

Even so, the past day’s events put a great deal into perspective for him. Bofur was not just another friend, and he had thought many times of the selfless, loyal dwarf during his dealings with Bard. There was also the swell of happiness he had felt when Bard had agreed to his plan with the Arkenstone. It was the belief that he had succeeded, that he could soon return to his company knowing they were safe and show Bofur that he had not deserted them. Everything fell into place for Bilbo then.

Bofur was the reason he had come back—and he was so broken by grief now that he might just have to act on his desires.

He thought of Bofur’s arms, strong and sturdy from years of mining in the Blue Mountains, and how many times they had made him feel secure. He also thought of Bofur’s hands and all the times those large, calloused, but gentle fingers had pulled him to safety and reassured him, making him feel as if all would be well for as long as they were touching him. Bilbo fantasized about how those arms and those hands might rub away his pain tonight, maybe even for longer than that, and he even dared to wonder what else the dwarf might do to ease him. He felt despicable for conjuring up such ideas, but at the end of those two long hours, he decided that maybe he should accept the other’s invitation.

He wasn’t the same hobbit he once was, after all.

* * *

Bofur’s reaction to Bilbo standing in the doorway of his candle-lit room was a rightfully astonished one. The timid smile that Bilbo greeted him with after that brought a more familiar expression to those whiskered features. The relief shining in the dwarf’s eye was ten steps ahead of him as he rose from the foot of his bed and approached his visitor.

“I’ve given a lot of thought to this,” Bilbo said once Bofur was in front of him. “I told myself what a mistake it would be to come here tonight. I told myself what an immoral, indecent, and incredibly implausible thing this would be to do...” He trailed off shaking his head, lost for words.

Bofur paused with a warier expression. “You did?”

Bilbo laughed quietly and faced him again. “No, you see, that’s just it. I _told_ myself all of those things, but I didn’t believe myself. I knew that under all of that stiff old propriety that this was something I really wanted. Something between us, something special.”

He was getting more excited by the second, and that positive energy was affecting Bofur as well. An overjoyed grin emerged from under his long mustache.

“And now you’re here?” he finished. 

“Now I’m here,” Bilbo confirmed serenely. He reached out and took his companion by the elbows. “Bofur, I know that you’ve always cared about me. I know that now, and I also know now that I care about you. And...” 

He struggled to speak right then. “And if the one blessing in all of this tragedy is that we finally found each other...then I will gladly embrace it.”

Bofur looked more like himself than he had in a while. His hat was still off, but his happiness was there again, even if his smile was much softer than usual. Bilbo might have tried to see what was behind that smile if the hobbit’s vision wasn’t temporarily blurred by the mention of their losses.

“You really want this, Bilbo?” Bofur asked him.

The burglar glanced down with a touch of his old clumsy humor. “Well, I’m not the most knowledgeable person on what ‘this’ is, but I do believe I know enough to want it. I wouldn’t be in this mountain tonight if I was too afraid to try new things, so...” 

He looked up at Bofur with deep meaning. “...I’m yours for the taking, if you want me.”

The dwarf’s smile softened more at this. Bilbo didn’t see that either. He was too focused on the sudden feeling of those powerful elbows bending in his grasp. Two large forearms came up under his slender ones to hold him by the elbows in turn.

“Those are mighty brave words for someone from the quaint green Shire, you know,’ Bofur teased him lightly.

“Well, I _am_ part Took.”

“I don’t know what that means,” the dwarf pleasantly declared.

They shared a small chuckle at that.

The hobbit wet his lips and said, “Then I’ll be sure to tell you about it.”

A delicate silence fell between them then. The two shared gazes for a heartbeat, then Bilbo felt Bofur’s arms slowly making their way around his small waist, encircling him. Already he could feel their muscles flexing through the heavy fabric of his and the miner’s clothing, and a wonderful dizzying sensation came over him. He closed his eyes, savoring the feeling, then he lifted his head, leaned towards his lover-to-be, and waited.

He waited for a very long time.

Bilbo cracked his eyelids open again when it began to feel too long. He found Bofur gazing down at him closely just as before, except a change had come over the taller figure. He looked pale, eyes gaping wide with something horrible, and his smiling lips were now parted indecisively. It was then that Bilbo felt those strong arms loosening around him and those large hands sliding away.

Concern gripped him. “Bofur?”

The dwarf shook his head quickly as his mouth fumbled to form a word.

“I can’t do this, Bilbo,” he whispered at last. 

The halfling was too stunned to question him.

Bofur released his partner and withdrew in a hurry, as if something had jabbed him. He staggered nearly all the way back to his bed in the tiny room.

“I’m sorry,” he expelled hoarsely. “I shouldn’t have done this. I’m so sorry I started this!”

Bilbo followed him as the hurt of his rejection began to take hold. “What are you talking about?”

“Stop, please!” Bofur begged him with a frantic bat of his hand.

The other complied so abruptly that he almost tripped over his large feet. Another jolt of anguish punched him in the chest at the sound of the cry. Having retained some distance, Bofur composed himself. He motioned back and forth between them with one finger.

“This,” he tried to elaborate. “We shouldn’t do this.”

Bilbo was already crumbling. “But...but earlier you said—”

“I didn’t know that this would be your first time.”

The Shireling almost laughed through his sadness. “Well of course it would be.”

“But it wouldn’t be mine.”

That was the blow that finally shattered the hobbit’s heart. He jerked back with a shaky gasp, looking betrayed by the news. Just like that, his special something with the person who had defended and supported him for so long had become a cheap liaison. Devastation crinkled his smooth face at that realization. 

Seeing this ripped at Bofur’s heart just as much. “Oh, Bilbo...” 

“I care about you,” the halfling warbled. “You said you cared about me too.”

“I do. I mean that truly, but this is wrong to do. You belong in the Shire. I belong here now. A courtship between us would never work. One of us would have to give up our home to be with the other. We can’t ask each other for a thing like that.”

“One of us could offer.”

“Would _you_ be willing to make that offer?” 

Bilbo’s silence was an answer in and of itself. Bofur’s silence said volumes as well.

The dwarf had a point to concede, as crushing as it was. Consummating a relationship would cost one of them dearly. Not only would the person who relented have to turn his back on his old home, but he would also have to adhere to his new one. Hobbits and dwarves were disapproving of outsiders as it was, and one who didn’t cast away his own people’s customs in exchange for theirs had little chance of living happily among them. Indeed, that was a sacrifice he could never ask anyone to make, let alone someone he thought he cherished.

He wondered if Bofur had given any thought to this matter before intimating his feelings earlier that evening. That was when something terrible in Bilbo made him wonder if the whole proposition had been some horrid trick to punish him for Thorin, Fíli, and Kíli.

The smaller figure was weeping freely when he spoke again, but he was calm. He never would have gotten his next words out if he had been anything less than calm.

“Do you love me, Bofur?”

The dwarf’s sorrow visibly deepened at such a question. 

“I do love you, Bilbo,” he quietly confessed, “and that’s why I can’t take you.”

Seeing that the hobbit didn’t understand, Bofur sat heavily on his bed once more. He had to plant his hands far apart on either side of him to hold himself up. His sights were aimed at the floor in misery when he explained himself.

“This quest has stolen so much of your innocence and given you nothing but pain for it. I can’t be the one to steal the last of it.”

He looked up at Bilbo again, almost pleading for that broken little soul to say something. Instead, the halfling hung his head and sank to the cold stone floor. Consideration pulled Bofur down from his bed to the floor as well. Neither one of them made any move to approach the other or even to leave. They preferred to sit in shock at opposite ends of the room.

They wondered if it really would have been worse to spend that night alone.

*


	2. A Thoughtful Isolation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bilbo returns to the Shire, only to get a nasty surprise and grow very disillusioned with his old home. Then he comes to an important decision.

Bilbo and Bofur stayed at their opposite ends of the room, wide awake and silent, until the first hint of morning. As soon as he heard the muffled sounds of other dwarves outside, the hobbit rose to his feet and hurried out the door. Life in the Shire had taught him to fear gossip, and the last thing he needed was word getting out that he had spent the night in one of his company mates’ bedchambers, especially when he hadn’t done what the rumors of that would likely imply.

Bofur didn’t say or do anything to sway him from leaving. Bilbo didn’t care to think about why. He made a point not to think much about the miner at all that day, in fact.

Packing to leave Erebor had been a quick process. The halfling hadn’t brought much with him on his journey in the first place, and the things he had been given along the way were few enough that he cold wear them and carry them on his person without stuffing them into a huge bag. He had also waived his promised fourteenth of the treasure shortly before the funeral last night. One of his dwarf companions, the financer Glóin, had suggested waiting until his emotions settled before making such a drastic decision, but Bilbo’s mind was made up. The way he saw it, gold was far too heavy and costly a burden to bear. 

Glóin had seemed to understand the deeper meaning behind that statement. Still, he had been good enough to mention a “long-term deposit” that he and a few other members of the company had made in the cave at Trollshaw early in their quest. Should the hobbit have second thoughts about turning down his well-earned share of wealth, he was more than welcome to dig up the stash for himself on his way home.

It was the afternoon following the funeral, just as Dain Ironfoot’s coronation as the new king of Erebor was concluding, that Bilbo took his leave. He chose to depart from the Lonely Mountain in the same fashion he always had, by sneaking away. The only dwarf he meant to say farewell to was Balin, who kindly led him and Gandalf out through what was left of the front gate. He didn’t think he had the strength to face the rest of his companions after everything that had happened, but in the end, the nine of them got the slip on their burglar at the gate and prompted a good-bye from him. The only bigger challenge for Bilbo than hiding his pain while he spoke was avoiding Bofur’s eyes. 

The dwarf, wearing his hat once more, was well aware of the tension. He all but hid behind Ori at the front and center of the group, and when everything was said and done, he quietly bowed along with everyone else. No one would have guessed that he had ever tried to be more than another acquaintance to Mr. Baggins.

Bilbo gave the company friendly words in parting, inviting them to visit his home of Bag End if they ever passed his way. It relieved him somewhat to even see a few of them laugh when he said they needn’t bother knock on his door. Those higher spirits stayed with him until they were out of earshot of the mountain and Gandalf commended him for what he said.

“It is a strange fate that you should gladly leave your door open to those who nearly broke it down only a few months ago,” the wizard observed with a wink, “although I think it is strange in a very decent way.”

Bilbo stumbled slightly, dropping his spirits. 

“Well, they would likely break it down again if I didn't leave it open for them," he tried to banter. He hung his head then and mumbled, "You think too highly of me, I’m afraid.”

When he felt Gandalf’s questioning eyes on him, he explained. “That wasn’t so much what I felt as much as it was, I suppose, what I felt I ought to say. They’ve lost too many comrades already. I hated to let them think they were losing another for good.” 

“Am I to understand then that you wish not to let them in if any should take you up on your invitation?”

“Not at all,” Bilbo said dully. “I would welcome them if they came. I just don’t expect them to come. They have a home now, and that's not such an easy thing to leave.”

The sad truth, which the hobbit kept to himself, was that he _hoped_ none of the dwarves would visit him. He was glad to leave them, Erebor, and every memory of his disastrous “adventure” behind him.

Well, not _every_ memory of it. He did want to hold onto his golden ring.

His feelings for the trinket grew quite a bit more complicated over the course of his return journey. More than once he tried bringing it up in conversation with Gandalf while they walked, yet the revelation always froze on the tip of his tongue and never came out. He assumed at first that he was keeping it a secret out of shame; it would be rather embarrassing to admit how many of his exploits on the quest were actually owed to a magic device instead of his own covertness. Then again, it was his own wit and resourcefulness that had “won” him the ring from Gollum in the first place, so what shame was there really in confessing that he had it?

That argument died a quick death every time he felt the smooth, tiny band in his pocket.

He eventually concluded that it was better left a secret. Months had passed since he had come to possess the item. Gandalf would probably give him a harsh talking-to just for withholding that information for so long, or worse, the wizard might deem the item too dangerous for a hobbit’s keeping and try to take it away. It was because of such thoughts that he spent several nights feigning sleep with his hand over his pocket to protect his precious prize. After all, he had witnessed from Gollum just how easily it could be stolen.

Thoughts of the ring plagued him all the way back to Trollshaw. They even pushed him to enter that foul-smelling cave and unearth Glóin’s “long-term deposit” while he was there. His reasoning was that he could use the chest of silver and gold that he found as a decoy in case Gandalf grew suspicious of his guarded behavior.

It came as a considerable surprise to him when the wizard, upon their parting on the borders of the Shire, outright accused him of having a ring.

“You don’t really suppose, do you, that through all, your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck?” the towering elder had sprung it on him. “Magic rings should not be used lightly, Bilbo. Don’t take me for a fool, I know you found one in the goblin tunnels, and I kept my eye on you ever since.”

Bilbo was flabbergasted through most of the lecture and said nothing for himself, but he had the good grace to thank Gandalf for his watchfulness. He bid the other farewell as swiftly and politely as he could when no mention of having to turn over the item came up. It was for good measure that he called back with one more comment as he headed off.

“You needn’t worry about that ring! It fell out of my pocket during the battle. I lost it!”

His friend studied him, then cordially said, “You’re a very fine person, Mr. Baggins, and I’m very fond of you, but you’re only quite a little fellow in a wide world, after all.”

The compliments meant more from Gandalf than they would have from anyone else, but they still made Bilbo uncomfortable. That was why he turned and continued on his way without saying any more. This and all of his other troubling reflections had him craving the comforts of home more than ever by the time he reached Hobbiton.

As it turned out, Eru had no intention of making him comfortable that day. The first sight to welcome him back to Bag End was that of several hobbits gathered on the pathway to his hill. Those who weren’t standing in a line that led to his front door were strolling away from it with some alarmingly familiar keepsakes in hand. This peaked with the discovery—and prompt termination—of an auction that was being held right on his doorstep.

The story he gathered in that mind-boggling mess was that he had been declared dead after his sudden disappearance from the Shire last year. With no closer relatives to inherit his property, it had all fallen into the hands of his cousin Otho Sackville-Baggins, who had seen fit to pocket some coin from everyone else in the Shire by clearing out Bag End. That greedy ne’er-do-well and his wife Lobelia were particularly disappointed to see the estate’s rightful owner alive, as they often were. They even disputed Bilbo’s identity until he produced the contract he had signed to join Thorin’s company, citing it as official documentation that he was in fact Bilbo Baggins and that he was not in fact dead.

It took him more than a year to recover all of the furniture and belongings that he did track down. A few things, his silverware in particular, remained missing. He had half a mind to guess whose hands those had found their way into. 

Needless to say, the burgled burglar wanted little to do with his neighbors and relatives after that. This remained so for almost another nine years. Bilbo spent most of that time sealed off alone in his hobbit hole, safe with his books, his armchair, his ring, and his thoughts.

It wasn’t long into those ten years when his thoughts turned back to Erebor. As hard as he tried to banish all of those heart-wrenching memories from his mind, he could never shake his regrets for the way he had left. Most of all, he regretted the way he had left Bofur.

He always tried to blame the dwarf for their falling out. Bofur was the one who had carelessly juggled with his heart of course, yet for all that carelessness, there was no denying that the miner had taken the right approach and ultimately done the right thing. It was he, Bilbo Baggins, who had chosen to make that final night something more than it should have been, and it was Bofur who had chosen at the moment of truth to put another’s needs ahead of his own desires. It was just unfortunate that doing so had forced him to pick the lesser of two evils.

There were plenty of other times when he had put the halfling before himself. Thinking back on it, Bilbo was actually hard pressed to recall any point on their quest where the dwarf hadn’t granted him some gesture of kindness or helpfulness, even if those gestures had been a touch misguided. 

He still had the “handkerchief” that Bofur had given him on the first day. His then-new ally had virtually given him the shirt off his back that afternoon when Bilbo’s allergies had become too much. The tattered shred of cloth, still unused, was locked in a trunk in Bag End’s study along with everything else the hobbit had brought home from his travels. Locked away to be forgotten, but not gotten rid of.

Why had he kept those mementos if he meant never to use or look upon them again? And why had he planted that acorn in his garden a mere month after his return home if he didn’t want to think about Thorin? Had that been to honor one of the slain king’s dying wishes to him, or had something else compelled him to do it? 

Perhaps he had feared that if he waited too long, the little oak nut would die and he would forever lose the chance to watch it grow.

The other thing he remembered most about Bofur was his smile. So vividly could he still picture those beaming, whiskered cheeks and those sparkling eyes, green like the ivy in his garden. It was a smile that made him happy looking at it, and a much friendlier face than any of those he saw aimed at him when he was forced to come out of his hobbit hole—or the sneer Lobelia would bring to his door every so often. 

And that smile and that friendly face had both looked wilted and broken on his and Bofur’s last farewell. 

Bilbo couldn’t say if he was any more ready to see Erebor after his ten-year absence, but on the day of his sixty-first birthday, he decided that he should at least try to visit the Lonely Mountain again. He doubted that Bofur still held the same feelings for him, and he especially doubted that someone so protective and generous was still available after a decade. Just the same, he wanted the closure of knowing that the dwarf was happy again. If he had learned anything from Thorin’s death, it was to never part on ill terms with a friend. 

He made arrangements with his more distant cousin Drogo Baggins, one of the few relatives he still thought well of, to keep Bag End out of Otho’s clutches while he was gone. He asked another decent hobbit by the name of Hamfast Gamgee to look after his garden in that time. On the morning of October the nineteenth, almost a month after his birthday, Bilbo ate a meager, single breakfast, took up his favorite walking stick with a clammy hand, and walked out his door pale as a sheet for another adventure.

He forgot his handkerchief that time too.

* * *

The Old Forest in mid-autumn was the closest thing to magic Bilbo had ever seen in the Shire before meeting Gandalf the Grey. His favorite season had always been springtime, but the sight of Buckland’s woods ablaze with red, orange, and gold made a strong case for those who preferred the later months. There was something almost otherworldly about the trees in that stage, yet homely as well. It put him in mind of Rivendell, the elf kingdom where he had first come to enjoy his last journey. He wasn’t sure though if he liked Rivendell because it had reminded him of the Old Forest, or if he liked the Old Forest because he had always been destined to admire the dwellings of elves.

The hobbit was pondering this as he crunched his way through the leaves on the road late that afternoon. He was alone, just as he had been for many hours. That was why the sudden sound of another nervous voice singing farther down the path made him stop.

_The world was young, the mountains green,_  
_No stain yet on the moon was seen,_  
_No words were laid on stream or stone,_  
_When Durin woke and walked alone_

The last line in particular sent a chill up Bilbo’s back. He wasn’t sure he had heard it right or if he had even heard it at all. That was when a second verse drifted into his ears.

_He named the nameless hills and dells;_  
_He drank from yet untasted wells;_  
_He stooped and looked in Mirrormere,_  
_And saw a crown of stars appear,_  
_As gems upon a silver thread,_  
_Above the shadow of his head_

Bilbo was flying down the road like an arrow the instant the verse was done. No Shireling would know a song about the dwarf king Durin, let alone sing one. The unseen minstrel was a traveler from other parts.

The lilt of an equally nervous clarinet following the lyrics spurred him even faster.

He was denying what he heard every bounding step of the way. Surely it was just wishful thinking! His ears must have been inventing things from all of his worry—why else would the song sound so uneasy to him? But even as he kept playing it down in his mind, the tune continued.

_The world was fair, the mountains tall,_  
_In elder days before the fall_  
_Of mighty kings in Nargothrond_  
_And Gondolin, who now beyond_  
_The western seas have passed away:_  
_The world was fair in Durin's—_

That was when Bilbo rounded a corner and spied the singer a short sprint away. The hobbit stopped so abruptly that he almost toppled over into the leaves in front of him. The singer, crouched under a roadside tree with his musical instrument in hand, cut his song short and straightened up at the sight of the interruption. Green eyes gawked up from between the bobbing ear-flaps of a ridiculous hat. 

Even from their distance, Bilbo and Bofur saw nothing but the grins forming on each other’s faces.

* * *

Bilbo swore he ate more that evening than he had in the last ten years combined. It was the first time in ages that he willingly had someone else in the house to cook for, and since all of that food was in front of him on his dining room table and his visitor was happy to dig in after his long journey, the host indulged more than usual as well. Finally having an appetite again helped him a great deal in that undertaking. 

He even broke out one of the heftier bottles from his father’s wine closet for the occasion. The halfling was so excited that he failed to notice Bofur’s eye lingering on the closet after he had emerged with the Old Winyard and shut the door behind him. They drained the whole bottle that night as they laughed and smoked and traded stories, and since the dwarf was still tired from all of his travels, he fell asleep rather quickly. He didn’t even get enough of a warning to leave the table or set down his pipe before he nodded off.

Bofur was in good hands, though. Having drunk considerably less of the Winyard, Bilbo had the wherewithal to safely remove his friend’s pipe and drape a blanket over him. He almost took off that hat too while he was at it, since he thought it absurd to sleep in one, but he refrained. Bofur was his guest, after all, and it was no one’s hat but his to take off.

Bilbo sat across the table from the snoozing dwarf for another hour, savoring the peace on that scruffy face and thinking about what might lie ahead for them, before drifting into his own slumber.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bilbo and Gandalf's dialogue about the Ring is obviously from the end of _The Battle of the Five Armies_ , except I'm not sure I got Gandalf's first line 100% right. He kind of mumbles it in the movie.
> 
> Bofur's song is "The World was Young, the Mountains Green" from the book _The Fellowship of the Ring_. In addition to being a good song for a dwarf, it reminisces about the happier early days of Durin's reign, which I thought would reflect Bofur's thoughts about Bilbo and their quest very nicely.


	3. Confronting Fears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bilbo and Bofur avoid talking about their past until another visitor to Bag End pushes them to it.

The hobbit and the dwarf were both hesitant to discuss the nature of Bofur’s visit to the Shire, if a visit was all it was meant to be. They politely evaded the subject for a week, spending their nights in separate rooms and occupying each other throughout their days with more stories of the past ten years. They spent their evenings quietly smoking or enjoying tunes from Bofur’s clarinet in the den when they ran out of things to say. Bilbo suspected that, like himself, the miner didn’t want to breech the subject because it would inevitably lead to a talk about their last night in Erebor. 

He also got the sense that they were each trying to “observe the terrain before venturing onto it,” as the saying went; mentions of them both remaining unattached and enjoying seeing each other again were scattered throughout their conversations. The thought of Bofur being timid was almost funny, but he had probably learned a hard lesson from the last time he had been bold about his feelings.

The stories that the dwarf told that week weren’t always easy to listen to. He and the nine other surviving members of Thorin’s company had all remained in Erebor since it was won, and he spoke about them and the mountain quite a bit. None of what he shared was unfortunate—least of all, the news that his brother Bombur and Glóin had each moved their families to Erebor from the Blue Mountains to start a new life—but hearing those familiar names stirred up some challenging memories. 

Still, there were some charming highlights. Bofur and his older cousin Bifur had apparently taken up toymaking again in the past decade, and they had found a nice niche for that and a few other crafts in the nearby city of Dale. The best news was that Bombur and his wife had recently added a thirteenth member to their brood. It was obvious from the way Bofur lit up while describing his newest nephew that he was quite pleased to have one more “dwarfling” in the family. Bilbo was surprised though to learn just how hairy dwarves were even when they first came into the world.

The hobbit’s stories went over a bit differently. Bofur found them amusing at first, even laughing at the tale of the auction, but his feelings took a less cheerful turn when Lobelia Sackville-Baggins paid her first visit to Bag End since his arrival. He and Bilbo were having afternoon tea in the dining room at the time, and they almost ended up wearing their tea when she started shouting and pounding on the door. 

Bilbo instinctively tensed in his seat. “Don’t move.”

Bofur turned back to him oddly. “Who’s—”

“Not so loud!” the other warned him in a sharp whisper.

Bofur looked nonchalantly towards the racket again. “I don’t think she’d hear me anyway. You’re not going to answer that? Seems like she’s got something important to say.”

“Believe me, it’s not important. It never is. That’s my cousin-in-law Lobelia that I told you about.”

The knocking grew more forceful just then, scaring Bilbo right out of his chair. He grasped the edge of the table while crouching behind it. It took a great deal of convincing to get Bofur to do the same.

“This happens often?” the dwarf asked dubiously.

The host’s gaze was glued to his door. “You can’t even imagine.”

The two shared a slightly forced laugh over the incident once Lobelia was gone. When it happened again the next day, Bofur suggested with a slightly more forced smile that Bilbo try sending her away.

“If you don’t want her coming to the house, tell her not to come. She’ll just keep showing up if you don’t answer the door.”

“I’ve _tried_ telling her not to come,” Bilbo retorted as he hunkered down in his armchair. “It doesn’t work. Acknowledging her only _encourages_ her. Besides, she doesn’t come knocking on her own behalf.”

“Well maybe if you told her to bring her husband some time, all three of you could settle this business.”

“Nope! Out of the question. Lobelia, I can tolerate, but Otho, I will not.”

“Right,” Bofur mused from his own hiding place behind the coffee table. “Wouldn’t want things to get intolerable, would we?”

Lobelia returned for a third try two days after that. By then, all the stories Bilbo had told about her and Otho, as well as all those of his neighbor’s sour looks and the rest of Hobbiton’s mutters of his strange disappearing ways, had become far less amusing to Bofur. He was a bit more pressing with the suggestion to confront her, and Bilbo was a bit more defensive in dismissing it. When Lobelia eventually skulked away by her own accord, the dwarf finally decided to have a talk with his friend.

“You know,” he said as they gathered their dinner from the pantry that evening, “I couldn’t help noticing I haven’t left the house since I got here.”

Bilbo paused a little as he reached for something on the top shelf. He could already see the writing on the wall. He grabbed what he was reaching for and kept his back to his guest. 

“I don’t think you’ll want to during your stay,” he replied stiffly. “Word of a dwarf being in the Shire would likely fetch some unwanted attention.”

Bofur watched him. “Unwanted by who? Me, or both of us?”

Bilbo glowered at the wall for a second before turning and exiting the pantry. He wasn’t in the mood for pretense anymore.

“What do you want me to say?” he asked. 

“I want you to say whether or not you’re happy here,” the taller being answered. He followed the hobbit tentatively into the dining room.

“I am as happy here as any person by the likes of myself possibly can be,” the other declared with a thread of patience.

“So it’s as bad as I thought,” was Bofur’s dry retort.

Bilbo set his items on the table, then planted his hands on his hips. He dropped his head with a sigh. The miner stopped a few paces short of him, casting a sad gaze on him.

“Please don’t look at me like that,” the halfling ordered. 

“Like what? You haven’t even looked at _me_ yet.”

Bilbo did just then. The glare he sent Bofur seemed scornful at first, but it was easy to see the pain behind that mask after a moment. His blue eyes were almost swimming with it as he perused the dwarf’s features.

“Like that,” he stated. “Like I’m some miserable creature in need of rescuing.”

“Bilbo, I haven’t heard one pleasant thing from you about this place since I stepped through the door. All week, you’ve gone on about nothing but how much these people frown on you—about how disappointed half of them are that you even made it home alive!”

His listener turned again and moved along into the parlor. 

“Is this the way things always were here?” Bofur asked as he took off after him again. “This doesn’t sound like the same place you always talked about missing on our quest.”

“Well it’s obviously the same place,” Bilbo grumbled back. “You were here to see it before we set out.” He pointed down. “This was the very floor where you made me collapse with your little tale about dragon fire all those years ago.” 

Bofur, for once, didn’t appreciate the humor. He dashed ahead and placed his larger frame in the next doorway, blocking the hobbit’s path. The serious, worried expression on that normally cheerful face made Bilbo stop cold.

“Just answer my question,” the dwarf implored. “Please. Are you happy here?”

Mr. Baggins glared up at his companion longer than he probably should have. Just like ten years ago, his silence was enough of an answer. His misery exposed, he lowered his gaze and shoved both hands into the pockets of his vest. That was so Bofur wouldn’t think twice of him reaching into one of them to feel for something.

“I really did miss my home for all the months we were on that quest,” Bilbo responded at last, “and I am happy that I was able to come back to it. The thing is just that our journey... _changed_ me a little, and my home has changed a little as well because of that.” 

He stole a glance at Bofur then, and he saw that the dwarf’s face had softened again. It wasn’t a pitying look this time, but a calm one; the look of someone who had just heard what he was expecting to hear and wasn’t pleased with it. Bilbo’s own expression softened at the sight of it, then he finished his answer.

“...And not entirely for the better.”

The halfling’s eyes darkened as he repeated Gandalf’s old words about him. Not wanting to see Bofur’s reaction to it, he turned away a third time and made his escape through the doorway on his left. He quietly made his way through the study from there and retreated into his bedroom.

The only sound that he or his visitor heard from each other the rest of that night was their empty stomachs growling.

* * *

Bofur didn’t retire to the guest room after their quarrel. He instead set himself up on the couch in the study, right outside Bilbo’s bedroom door. His hope was to be ready when the hobbit came out again and resume the discussion when things were less tense, but he was no match for the plushy seat cushions beneath him. He awoke the next morning, October the twenty-sixth, to find another blanket placed over him and the room he had been guarding empty.

The dwarf didn’t have to go far to track down his host. Bilbo was seated at the dining room table, looking deep in thought as he listlessly prodded the very same food he had set there last evening. It was clear from the state of the room that he hadn’t done anything else since entering it.

Bofur approached him slowly, picking his brain for just the right icebreaker. Bilbo must have been anticipating a second round, because he knew precisely what he wanted to say.

“You were right, you know, to put a stop to things that last night in Erebor.”

The miner halted in the dining room’s doorway. 

The only thing more surprising than Bilbo’s words was his tone. He didn’t sound dreary or bitter to bring up that sore topic. Rather, he sounded bizarrely serene about it. The halfling attempted an assuring smile when he lifted his head.

“Those weren’t the appropriate circumstances, and we were letting our emotions do all the thinking for us. If we had done what we intended that night, I believe we would have regretted it. So thank you.”

Bofur only relaxed slightly, letting his shoulders sag with gloom. 

“I’ve had regrets about it, all the same,” he admitted.

He dragged his leaden feet to the table and took the seat next to Bilbo’s. The dwarf made sure not to lean too close to his comrade. For a moment, he seemed to immerse himself in the swirling patterns of the wooden tabletop.

“I meant what I said that night,” he continued earnestly, “about my feelings for you. It’s what I said about _us_ , I guess, that didn’t come out right. I’ve spent a lot of other nights thinking of better ways I could’ve handled that, and maybe even another offer I could’ve made.”

Bilbo had been watching him with care the whole time. “And now you’re here?”

Bofur twitched slightly, recognizing the line. “Now I’m here.”

“How long were you planning to be here?”

Anxiety crept into the other’s tone as he dared to be just a little forthright. “As long as I was welcome.”

Bilbo detected the tremble in that voice, and he immediately thought back to their reunion in the Old Forest. Even after a week, the sound of his friend nervously singing to himself and stumbling over every note of his clarinet still haunted the hobbit. Bofur must have feared this conversation ever since he set out from Erebor, and it must have festered into something unbearable for him to buckle under it like that so close to his destination.

It made Bilbo’s heart wrench, even as he tried to look fondly on the dwarf. 

“Bofur...” He suddenly reached across the table to take one of those large hands in both of his. “You will always be welcome here.”

“As a friend, right?” 

It was Bilbo’s turn to be a little forthright. “Perhaps as more, if you still feel the same way.”

Bofur looked up at him, awestruck. “And how do _you_ feel?”

“I’ve had regrets too about the way we left things,” Bilbo confessed, letting one hand brush gingerly over the rough fingers beneath them. “As much as I’ve tried to be angry at you for it, I’ve always known you were right to stop me from throwing myself at you. You were keeping me safe like you always did.” 

The two of them shared a small smile across the table before he went on. 

“And...I’ve missed you, Bofur. I’ve missed the jokes and the songs, and having someone around to confide in. More than anything, I’ve missed seeing you smile at me like that. For me to think about that for so long when I haven’t wanted to think about one single other thing from that quest, I believe I must feel the same way about you now as I did that night.”

They held each other’s gaze for close to a minute, basking in the warmth of those words, when Bofur’s smile suddenly faded. He gave Bilbo a peculiar sideways look. This was going too smoothly.

The hobbit’s smile waned too. “What?”

“What were you doing on the road that day when you stumbled onto me?”

“Oh,” Bilbo grappled for an answer. “I was...getting out of the house for a while.” 

It wasn’t a lie.

Bofur arched his bushy eyebrows. “So you still want to live here? Even though you've changed?”

“Yes,” Bilbo replied a little too quickly. He managed a less than graceful recovery. “Look, Bofur, I've thought about Erebor many times. I have. It's just...it's still not something I’m ready to face again.”

“But you don’t like it in the Shire either.”

After a weighty pause, Bilbo said, “This is where I belong.”

Bofur decided not to dispute that anymore. He looked down at the hobbit’s tiny hands as they continued to hold and massage one of his. After what seemed like a great deal of contemplation, the dwarf brought his other hand forward and laid it on top of the pile. When he met Bilbo’s eyes, he met them with all the adoration in the world.

“Then it’s where I’d like to be,” he declared.

Bilbo returned that adoration for as long as he could until his concerns took over. He hadn’t forgotten Bofur’s warning ten years ago of what a courtship would require from one of them. The dwarf himself would have to be that one if they were to live here in Bag End.

“You realize what this means, though,” the halfling said with strain. “What you’ll have to do. Bofur, the people here don’t care for the dealings of those beyond the Shire’s borders. They’re not going to welcome an outsider among them with open arms.”

“I know, but I didn’t come all this way to say I still wasn’t ready to commit. Besides, you’re going to be so lonely hiding under this table by yourself the next time Lobelia comes knocking.”

Bilbo gave a chuckle that was almost sad. The feeling of Bofur stroking his hand calmed him instantly. The dwarf—his dwarf now, he supposed—bid his attention with another tender gaze.

“I’m willing to do this, Bilbo. For you, I would do this, because I do still love you.”

The hobbit fully returned that tenderness. “I love you too, Bofur.”

The biggest smile of all stretched across that hairy face. “I guess that wasn’t so hard to say after all.”

He did lean close to Bilbo then. He leaned so close that both of them shut their eyes, then their lips slowly joined for their very first kiss. It was chaste, as gentle and innocent as its recipient, but they prolonged it to enjoy every sensation. Bofur’s hands reached out at one point to cradle his hobbit’s head, and when the kiss ended and he leaned back, he didn’t let go.

Bilbo made no attempt to remove himself from Bofur’s hold. He didn’t even open his eyes again. For now, he was content to lose himself in that caring, protective touch.

It had been so long since anyone had touched him with love.

Bofur observed him for a few seconds. Sensing what Bilbo was feeling, he leaned in again with a soft smile and rested his forehead reassuringly against his partner’s. 

Neither one of them would stir from that tranquil position for a very long time.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay tuned for a more flirtatious Chapter 4...
> 
> And I just realized that this chapter was posted on Valentine's Day. <3


	4. When the Feeling is Right

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bilbo and Bofur don't want to jump right into a physical relationship after what happened last time, but the mind and the body aren't always on the same page.

The new couple took things slowly at first, or at least they tried to. Bilbo informed Bofur as a courtesy that he still had yet to make love for the first time, which inevitably put the dwarf on his toes again. The hobbit had his own reservations about rushing into such an activity, not just for the sake of propriety, but also for what he could only describe as fear of the unknown. Since there was no need to hurry anyway, they went about their household business in a romantic bliss for the next three days, all while idly discussing how they might integrate Bofur into Shire society.

That was how they got through the days. Getting through the nights was another story.

It was probably a bad idea, given what they were trying to avoid, but they agreed on moving Bofur from the guest room to Bilbo’s room. They _were_ in something of a committed relationship now, and it wasn’t as if two full-grown adults couldn’t share a bed just to sleep in it. In spite of this, it was apparent that their bodies were far more eager than their minds to make up for the last ten years.

Bilbo and Bofur almost had to laugh at how naturally poor they were at minding their boundaries. Each night, they would fall asleep at their different ends of the mattress, the hobbit on the right in his undergarments, the dwarf on the left in his long johns, yet when they woke the next morning, they would always find themselves curled up together in the middle of it. They would separate themselves then, sharing a bashful smile and a kiss, and blame their snuggling on the chilly autumn weather. They didn’t know what to blame for the curious glimpses they would catch in each other’s eyes right after breaking their contact.

Those glimpses weren’t always intended, and they didn’t always wait until the morning to appear. On the third night following their decision to court, Bilbo saw one of those glimpses in Bofur before they even went to bed. The pair was sitting together on the floor of the den, leaning against each other and enjoying the fireplace while they waited for dinner and supper to settle in their stomachs. It was in the middle of that relaxation that the miner’s muse prompted him to pick up his clarinet from the coffee table and play a few made-up bars.

Bilbo tried to keep his head laid on Bofur’s shoulder. However, something about the way that resting surface shifted from the musician’s sharp breaths and the feeling of tiny muscles twitching beneath its surface as his fingers danced along the instrument made the hobbit want to look up. His partner’s eyes stayed fixed on the clarinet, but the light from the fireplace reflecting in them made those green orbs smolder.

The sight of them, combined with the sound of that brooding, exotic tune, had the halfling spellbound. He was tempted to interrupt the piece more than once, what with his lips being so near to the other’s cheek, but he refrained. It would have been impolite not to let Bofur finish. 

The only way Bilbo could quell his urge was by burying his face back down into that massive shoulder. He heard the tune end a few notes later and felt the end of a mustache mingle with his curly hair as Bofur turned. The dwarf’s muscles were tense, showing how surprised he was by the hobbit’s flustered reaction.

They went to sleep with their backs to each other that night, hoping to combat what was obviously building between them. The next morning found them in their most compromising position yet. Bilbo woke to discover Bofur lying partially over him with a powerful arm draped across his chest, as well as all four of their legs tangled together. What was more, the hobbit found that his own two legs had wrapped around one of his bedmate’s, as if they had desperately wanted to have a part of the dwarf between them. 

Mr. Baggins was startled, but also a little intrigued. He knew that Bofur hadn’t tried to do anything, and since his sleeping partner wasn’t trying to pull away from him yet either, he had time to study this deeply personal contact and decide what he thought of it.

He couldn’t see Bofur’s face. It was nestled into the side of his neck as they shared the same pillow. He could feel the heat of the other’s breath though, and that sent a ripple of heat through the rest of his small body. Bilbo might have shuddered from the tingling sensation if that heavy arm on his chest wasn’t there to keep him still.

The halfling soon began to understand why so many, including himself on that fateful night in Erebor, craved this physical closeness. Having a loved one’s warmth and weight pressed against him from head to toe was comforting, but also strangely exhilarating. The wrong person could easily harm him in this vulnerable position, especially a person he had seen kill dozens in battle. He would be helpless against someone like that, yet he realized that he had nothing to fear from Bofur. It was like walking across a bed of hot coals that refused to burn only him—like stepping into a fire that refused to _incinerate_ only him. He was that special someone that his dwarf would never touch in any bad way, and his dwarf was proving it this morning without even knowing. It was perhaps the safest and the most right he had ever felt with Bofur.

That earthy, smoky scent and the tickle of the other’s hair on his neck were enjoyable sensations as well. Even the faint snoring sound by his ear was a charming quirk in this context. Bilbo laid very still, taking in all of these things, until the larger body cuddled against him stirred and woke.

They didn’t stay cuddled for long after that. Bofur removed himself from Bilbo with a start and looked to his bedmate in alarm. That alarm turned to confusion when he saw the hobbit was already awake and raptly returning his attention. 

The couple sat up in unison and stared at each other for nearly a minute. They half expected one or both of them to snap and lunge at the other in a passionate fit. Ultimately, their senses woke with them and drew them out of bed on their separate sides. The only things they shared that morning were an awkward laugh and a few more curious glimpses. 

They knew then that they wouldn’t be able to keep up propriety for much longer.

* * *

Bilbo stood alone in his bedroom later that same day. It was early evening, and the only light around him was leaking in through the door from the candles in the study. He could have easily lit the lantern on his nightstand in front of him, except that might have given away his whereabouts if Bofur happened to wander out of the kitchen in search of him. It was privacy that he needed right then.

Reaching into his pocket, the halfling retrieved his magic ring and held it to his chest. He gazed down fondly at the golden band, turned it over in his fingers, then reached out with his other hand to pull open the nightstand’s drawer. It took a bit of effort, but he eventually willed himself to place his ring inside that drawer and carefully shut it away. 

Just for tonight, let it leave his thoughts.

* * *

That evening’s dinner and supper were nothing special compared to others that Bilbo and Bofur had shared. As much as the dwarf liked the prospect of eating seven full meals a day, he wasn’t his brother, and therefore couldn’t keep up with that custom for long. The hobbit wasn’t terribly hungry either, so they settled on what were essentially two light snacks by Shire standards. Considering that and Bofur’s offer to help clean up afterwards, it took an absurdly long time for them to do the dishes.

The two were standing side by side at the sink, engrossed in their task. They would occasionally hand an item off or mumble something dish-related to one another, and at times they would catch each other stealing glances, but that was the extent of their interaction. Once again, they were thinking the same thing without wanting to say it. 

Bilbo kind of felt bad for this. What had become of his brash, outspoken dwarf? Had their unfortunate last night in Erebor really left the miner so affected that he didn’t dare to make another move? 

The halfling paused in his scrubbing to watch Bofur. There had to be some way he could dig up that old rascal who had won him over so many years ago. Lifting his gaze higher, the perfect idea came to him.

He discarded his dishes, slowly reached up, and removed Bofur’s hat from his head.

The dwarf froze. After a beat, he turned questioningly to Bilbo. The hobbit was beaming as he moved the furry accessory behind his back and held it there.

Bofur watched him for another beat, then gave him a sly look. The message behind it was clear: _That’s mine._

The message behind Bilbo’s look was even clearer: _Then come and get it._

Forgetting the plate he had been drying, the taller figure stepped towards his partner. He brought his arms teasingly around Bilbo, and instead of reclaiming his hat, he rubbed his large, calloused thumbs over the hobbit’s smooth fingers. The slyness between them drained away as they held each other’s gazes.

Bofur leaned in then and gently kissed Bilbo’s forehead. He pulled back slightly and saw that the blue eyes below him had closed, then he stooped to place another soft kiss on one of them. His lips moved down farther and planted a third endearment on the blushing cheek below that eye. 

After that, he pulled back again to take in the sight of his love. Bilbo’s eyes remained closed, and although he had gone very still, he was starting to tremble from anticipation. Bofur listened briefly to the hobbit’s quiet, shaky breathing before finally leaning in for a fourth kiss.

He left a love peck on the tip of Bilbo’s nose.

The halfling dropped his head laughing. Bofur let out a chuckle of his own and released Bilbo’s hands, allowing them to come forward with his hat and huddle against his broad chest. One of his own hands joined the congregation while his other arm kept safely around that smaller waist.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Bilbo?” he asked in good humor.

“I am sure,” the other insisted, lifting his now very pink face. “We’d only be lying to ourselves to say we didn’t want this, and I certainly ought to be ready by my age.”

“But are you?”

The hobbit’s smile softened more sincerely. “I am now.” He lowered his eyes somewhat as he fidgeted with their hands. “Bofur, this is something very special and very personal that I have never wanted with anyone before, but now I am ready to have it with you. I want us to share this.”

The dwarf’s smile softened for another reason. “And what about...my having shared it with others before you?”

Bilbo adjusted Bofur’s shirt collar and lowered his voice. “Well, from my experience, I think it’s wise for someone venturing into new territory to have a guide who knows what they’re doing.” 

At that instant, Bofur’s fear was bared. “A guide that you trust?” 

Bilbo’s playfulness fell away, and he met those worried eyes meaningfully. “Of course.”

With that, he brought a hand up to cradle Bofur’s cheek. The dwarf lowered and turned his head to press another kiss into that little palm, taking comfort from the touch and thanking it with affection. The hand left his cheek with a caress and went around the back of his neck to lead his head down farther. He didn’t need any more encouragement once his lips met Bilbo’s.

Large arms encircled the hobbit as smaller ones slid over and around Bofur’s shoulders, still dragging along that silly hat. Their kiss gradually deepened, and Bilbo gasped into his guide’s mouth as he felt them draw each other closer. When they broke off for air, he gaped up at his dear one, looking nervous and excited all at once.

Bofur had a very different look by then. Eyes twinkling with love, he stepped aside and crouched to carefully slip one arm behind Bilbo’s legs. Before his hobbit could question this, he had scooped him off of his feet like a bride.

Bewilderment colored Bilbo’s anxiousness, but he wouldn’t protest. Bofur continued to smile, then the dwarf’s heart felt so light that a song tenderly escaped from his lips. He sang it all the way from the kitchen to the bedroom, soothing the last of those nerves and making his beloved little bundle smile as well.

_If I have strength enough to spend,_  
_And leisure time to stay a while,_  
_There is a burglar in this house,_  
_Who surely has my heart beguiled_  
_His rosy cheeks and sapphire eyes,_  
_Tonight they have my soul in thrall_  
_So raise for us the farewell cup,_  
_Good night and joy be with you all..._

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most Bofur fans probably know this by now, but James Nesbitt was in a movie called _Waking Ned Devine_ back in 1998 and he sings a verse of the Scotch-Irish folksong "The Parting Glass" in the film:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1moPu-p-LU
> 
> As soon as I heard his rendition, this story pretty much wrote itself. The message of "The Parting Glass" is everything Bofur stands for: a desire to enjoy life and to always wish others well, even as you leave them. So basically, you can thank the man under the hat himself for some of the bigger feels this story might give you later. :)
> 
> I should say though that I've altered the lyrics slightly. Bofur's obviously changing some of them to make the song apply to Bilbo, but I also adjusted the wording to make it seem like this is an early version of "The Parting Glass" that eventually evolved into the one we know today.


	5. Opened and Closed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bofur tries to solve a problem for Bilbo, but his "solution" does more harm than good.

Bofur was extremely careful that night. He was perhaps far more careful than he needed to be, but he thought it better to act like his new lover was made of glass than to go too far and break him, especially since he was breaking him in. He made absolutely certain not to rest his full weight on Bilbo, and he would not remove any article of clothing from the hobbit until removing his own first, never wanting the other to feel like the more exposed person. After they were undressed, the dwarf kept his partner reassured, steadying him with calming caresses and whispering that all of the things Bilbo experienced were supposed to happen. 

He was secretly relieved when the halfling confessed, just as they were preparing for their ultimate deed, that he wasn’t quite ready to be “taken” yet after all. They were likely both worried that it would result in Bofur accidentally hurting the smaller being, so they used their hands on each other instead. Through it all, their lips kept finding their way softly back to one another’s as a reminder that their actions were with love first and foremost. 

Bofur said when they were finished that Bilbo could go right to sleep if he wanted. The hobbit might have considered it impolite to end their night in that fashion, but he was in such a weary and wondrous state of security that he did just that. He stayed that way well into the next morning, even after his bedmate woke beside him. 

The dwarf was lying on his side with one arm folded under his ear and a fluffy hobbit head tucked under his chin when he came to. Sensing that Bilbo was still sound asleep, he unwound his other arm from his partner’s waist and edged himself back as stealthily as possible to keep from disturbing anything. His eyes shined brighter than the sun through the window when he looked down at his dear one.

Mahal himself couldn’t have made a more perfect little face. All of the unhappy creases were gone from Bilbo’s features, and the tiniest traces of satisfaction seemed to quirk up the very corners of his mouth. The only obstructions were his hands curled in front of his cheek on the pillow.

Bofur tugged the blankets higher over the halfling’s bare shoulder and stroked that face with the lightest touch a dwarf could manage. A deep sense of care filled him in that moment, but it was something much more than a lover’s fondness. It was a feeling of responsibility, an urge to protect and nurture the more delicate creature before him. He had claimed the last of Bilbo’s innocence, and now it was up to him to help his Shireling go on without it.

He continued peacefully doting on the hobbit until a loud knock at the front door and an even louder voice shattered the tranquility.

“Bilbo Baggins, let me in this instant!”

Bofur’s head shot up like a startled rabbit. He revived from his stupor at the next yell and looked to the bedroom door, appalled. There was no mistaking the voice of Lobelia Sackville-Baggins.

The dwarf tried to weather the interruption like he had always been told to. Let that angry bleater shout and pound and then wander off. He would have preferred to remain in bed and ignore her anyway. All of that changed though when he heard a faint groan and looked down to find Bilbo slowly nuzzling the pillow. The racket across the house was starting to wake him.

That was the last straw. Mind made up, Bofur flung his sheets aside and got up from the bed. He hurried around the foot of it and stormed right out of the room with fire in his eyes. 

But not before snatching his hat off of the floor.

Outside, Lobelia kept knocking.

“I know you’re in there and I know you can hear me!” she barked. “I’ve been more than patient with you this week, but I will not tolerate any more of this disregard! I demand that you open this door!”

Her demand was met a split second later. Bag End’s round green door swung away from her, wrenched open from inside, and Lobelia’s fist paused in the air beside her. She gawked up with utter horror at the figure looming in the entranceway.

There stood Bofur in all his naked, hairy glory, covering himself with his hat.

“I’m sorry,” he said without remorse. “Bilbo can’t come to the door right now.” He leaned in then with a dastardly grin. “...But _I_ can give you what you need.”

Lobelia was outside the gate and fleeing down the road before he finished his next breath.

Bofur watched her go, straight-faced and unflinching. Once he lost sight of her, he turned away from the entrance with a mocking shrug.

“Seemed reasonable enough.”

He grabbed the door and shut it just before he turned his other cheek to Hobbiton.

The dwarf was feeling mighty proud of himself as he made his way back through the house. He was even humming the tune of “Far Over The Misty Mountains Cold” as a victory song by the time he reached the bedroom. His celebration ended the moment he stepped over the threshold.

“Somebody at the door?” Bilbo murmured sleepily from the bed.

Bofur stumbled and winced at the sound of the other’s voice. Lobelia had ruined their moment after all.

“There was,” he recovered, “but they went away.”

He went around to his side of the bed and slid back under the covers, brightening when Bilbo snuggled up to his chest again. One arm found its way around the hobbit’s narrow shoulders from below while the other came to rest over his side. In turn, one of Bilbo’s hands lightly clung to the ends of Bofur’s hair. This particularly delighted the miner, as he remembered how much of a liking the halfling had taken to those long, dark strands last night.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

Bilbo thought for a moment, his eyes still closed. “A bit tired, a bit sore, and very pleased about it.”

Bofur gave a quiet laugh and settled in for another doze. It wasn’t long after that when something drifted across Bilbo’s mind. The hobbit shifted his head in thought.

“Bofur? How do you know the person at the door went away?” 

The dwarf’s serene smile never faded. “Because I answered it naked and scared them off.”

Bilbo’s eyes snapped open.

* * *

“I _told_ you not to acknowledge her! ‘No confrontations,’ I said. ‘I can tolerate her,’ I said, and then the first time I let my guard down, you sabotage everything!”

“I didn’t ‘sabotage’ anything! I was faced with a problem and I solved it the way I always do: with my hat on my head.”

“Oh, and what a lovely touch _that_ was, by the way. It never crossed your mind to pick up the rest of your clothes with it? I guess it makes sense though, seeing how she’s laid eyes on everything else in this house.”

Bilbo was dressing himself all the way through the house, half-walking, half-stumbling. Bofur trailed him doing the same, only much more calmly. They had been arguing ever since they leapt out of bed. 

“Well excuse me for trying to chase that nattering she-wolf out of your hair once and for all!” the dwarf said indignantly.

“What you’ve done is the exact opposite of chasing out!” Bilbo retaliated as he pulled up his suspenders. “Lobelia will tell everyone she sees about this, then _those_ people will tell everyone _they_ see, and before you know it, the whole Shire will come flocking here for a look at the irate naked dwarf parading around Bag End!”

Bofur wrinkled his nose. “That’s a thing of fancy among halflings?”

Bilbo’s only answer was a scoff as he trudged away. He went to the parlor window, then yanked the shutters closed and locked them. He sent his housemate a distasteful glare as he moved on. 

“I don’t suppose you have any ideas for how to explain your state of undress to them, do you?”

The other paused with one arm in his sleeve and shrugged. “Well, the _truth_ comes to mind.”

“Wrong again!” Bilbo declared with a theatrical wag of his finger. “We’re not telling anyone about last night. No one is ever going to know it happened.”

This brought an unpleasant tone to Bofur’s voice as well. “Why not?”

The hobbit went into the dining room rubbing his temples. “Why not? Why not? Because last night, what we did, two people like us, is a thing unheard of around here!”

“What do you mean ‘two people like us’?”

“Two _males_.”

“Oh, so you’re the first person in the whole history of the Shire to ever take a shine to someone with the same equipment?” Bofur asked sarcastically.

“That’s not for me nor anyone else to know.” Bilbo punctuated this statement by shutting and locking the dining room window too. “I’m sure dwarves are just as secretive about it.”

“We’re two men to every woman. We’ve got to expect a few experiments here and there.”

“Well, hobbits _don’t_ expect them,” Bilbo stated as he passed Bofur in the parlor, “and in case you’ve forgotten, we don’t particularly care for things that aren’t expected.”

He headed straight for the front door as he spoke. If the rest of the morning had gone accordingly, there was bound to be a letter or two in his mailbox, and he thought it would be wise to grab them now before bunkering down for the day. He pulled the door open in a huff and proceeded to the front step.

So did the dozen or so other hobbits already chattering away in his front yard. 

Bilbo went rigid. As soon as he processed the oncoming nightmare, he yanked his door shut again and bolted it. He paused for several seconds after that with his back flat against the barrier and his eyes the size of his two front windows. 

A more alarming change came over him when something else occurred to him. The halfling hunched forward with a mad glint in his eye and swatted fiercely at the air between him and Bofur. 

“Get back!” he hissed. “Don’t go near the doors! Stay away from the windows!”

The dwarf side-stepped in a near panic as the ranting hobbit lurched past him. He found the courage to be irritated again once Bilbo was a good distance away.

“I’m sorry,” he snipped as he followed, “but when you agreed to a courtship, were you expecting me to never leave the house again?”

“I was expecting you to leave it when I decided the time was right!” 

“Is that so? Well I’m glad I didn’t go into any other ‘hobbit holes’ this week if that was the rule!”

“We can do without the innuendos right now, thank you very much!” Bilbo spat back without looking. 

The hobbit had returned to his bedroom by then. Dashing inside, he grabbed the door and slammed it shut behind him. He started fishing through his nightstand drawer as a very disgusted Bofur caught up to him. 

“You know, I hope you enjoyed yourself last night,” the dwarf jeered through the door, “because I don’t think I’ll be much in the mood again for a while!”

Bilbo laughed sourly under his breath. “Oh, you are the _last_ person who should lecture about spoiling the mood.”

He retrieved his ring from the drawer after that, then he climbed onto the bed to cower with his little security token.

* * *

The rest of the day didn’t bring much peace to Bag End. The sound of voices frequently came and went from the front door, as did the sound of people other than Lobelia knocking on it. Bilbo and Bofur tolerated these things and went about their day as best they could, avoiding the entrances, the windows, and most of all, each other.

Understandably, that night was a great deal less romantic than the last one. The couple had reached a silent agreement that they would spend it in separate places, so at sundown, Bofur headed for the guest room with a lifeless mutter of “good night.” Bilbo debated whether or not to answer it until he heard the other’s door close.

The next few hours found Mr. Baggins alone in his bed with his ring in hand. The trinket wasn’t much of a substitute for his dwarf, but it did a much better job of easing his mind. Something about the way the moonlight reflected in its flawless golden surface as he held it to his face made all of that day’s memories blur in his mind and all of his frustrations go numb.

He had worked his way into a nice meditation when he suddenly heard his bedroom door creak open. Bilbo came out of his trance in a fright and immediately curled in on himself, clasping his ring protectively against his collarbone. He could only thank Eru that he happened to be lying with his back to his intruder.

Bofur stood in the now open doorway for a moment. Seeing that his partner was awake, he crept into the room to stand by the bed. He noticed somewhat dismally that Bilbo was lying on the left side of the mattress, the dwarf’s side, as if the hobbit was glad not to share it anymore. That didn’t stop the bearded outcast from taking a seat on the right edge. 

He waited for Bilbo to say something to this. When nothing was said, he spoke his own mind.

“I’m sorry.”

Bilbo shifted his nervous gaze towards the dwarf’s voice. Those words were another thing he hadn’t been expecting, but he didn’t know how to react to them. Still unable to see Bofur, he kept his back turned and his ring hidden.

The apology continued. “As much as I wanted to do the right thing, I did it the wrong way, and I made a mess of things. You know this place and these people better than I do, so I should’ve listened to you.”

A heavy silence filled the room. Bilbo realized that it was his turn to talk, or at least to acknowledge Bofur. He would have done both if it wasn’t for his ring, but he didn’t know how closely he was being watched. Any attempt to hide the magic device could give him away, and engaging in conversation would surely lead to the dwarf discovering what he had in his hand. He was so terribly caught off guard that he couldn’t think of what to do, and so he did nothing at all.

It didn’t take Bofur long to sense that he wasn’t getting a response. The somberness on his face sank into acceptance, then he nodded to himself and got up. The last Bilbo heard of him that night was yet another bedroom door closing.

The hobbit peered back over his shoulder and saw that he was alone. He let himself relax, but his thoughts lingered on Bofur’s words. A pang of guilt ripped through him as he lowered his head back to the pillow, and when he held out his ring to study it again, that feeling didn’t go away. 

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a lot of fun writing this chapter, even though it ends on a down note. There's so much opportunity for banter in stories about Bilbo and Bofur, no matter what their relationship is.
> 
> Also, I couldn't resist having Bofur hum the dwarves' heroic theme music from the first _Hobbit_ movie after he got rid of Lobelia.


	6. The First Repairs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bilbo and Bofur make amends, then decide to bring in someone who can help with their situation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just curious, what do people think of this story so far? I've never written slash before, and I'm interested to know how it's turning out.
> 
> I also want to thank those who have given me comments and kudos on the first five chapters. They're very much appreciated!

Bilbo didn’t know how Bofur spent the rest of the night. He hoped that the dwarf was able to fall asleep and pass that time in a more restful state, but that seemed unlikely. In any case, his partner appeared to have been awake for quite some time when the halfling found him fully dressed—hat and all—smoking his pipe at the dining room table the next morning.

Neither one of them said anything as Bilbo entered the room, clad in his old patchwork robe. Bofur didn’t even regard him. Whatever was simmering in the larger figure’s mind, he was content to keep it to himself and bitterly watch his smoke cloud grow in front of him.

As if this wasn’t uncomfortable enough, the hobbit also picked up the sound of snickering outside his parlor. Frowning with a knot in his stomach, he crept to the dining room window and peered out and to the left at his trespassers. Just as he dreaded, he saw two lads in their thirties crouched under the larger parlor window, trying to steal a peek inside. They were the local troublemakers Pollo Foxburr and Wilibold Knotwise.

Bilbo tore his gaze away feverishly. As fate would have it, his gaze happened to fall on one of the counters at the kitchen end of the room, where a large ceramic dish sat from the night before. He observed it for what felt like ages, then he squared his jaw and marched over to it.

His next move after grabbing it was to place it under the sink faucet and fill it with water. Another contemplative pause went by before he hauled the dish to the dining room table, set it at the end by the window, and unlocked that window as silently as possible. Once he had the whole thing open, he turned his back to it with his head down and his hands on his hips. That was when his last thread of dignity snapped.

Grabbing the dish, he spun around and flung its contents out the window and to the left.

Bofur couldn’t very well ignore him after that. It was especially hard after Pollo and Wilibold’s startled yells flooded into the dining room. The dwarf stared from his seat with a questioning look while Bilbo barricaded the window again. 

After placing his dish back on the table, the hobbit pointed a humoring finger at his window.

“I have to admit, that was very satisfying.”

“At least something you did this week was,” the other clipped dourly.

Bofur returned to his pipe then. As disheartening as it was, Bilbo couldn’t blame him for rebuffing the attempted icebreaker. It was only fair after last night. 

Swallowing his pride, the hobbit made his way along the table to stand beside his partner’s chair. He had to clasp his hands together behind his back to keep them from fidgeting.

“I know you wanted to do the right thing for me yesterday,” he said softly. “Your heart has always been in the right place concerning me, and I should have remembered that. I should have at least appreciated your intensions, and I shouldn’t have shut you out.” He wet his lips nervously. “I’m sorry, Bofur.”

A slow change came over his housemate throughout the apology. Bofur went from begrudged to bemused, then an almost sad look came to him. The miner lowered his pipe and his chin in thought, and Bilbo began to fear that he would receive the same dismissive treatment that he had given last night. All of that fear went out the window with his dishwater when the dwarf turned one hand palm-up and slid it to him on the table.

Relief pulled Bilbo down into another chair to take that hand. Their fingers tightened securely around one another’s, then they looked up at each other. A heartening smile met the hobbit’s timid one. 

“I guess this goes to show we deserve each other,” Bofur joked calmly, dropping his eye again.

Bilbo looked down with a quiet laugh too. “I don’t deny that.”

His attention fell on their joined hands for a moment. The image took him back nearly a week ago, to the morning when they had decided to finally begin their courtship. Glancing over at the kitchen sink made him think of another recent milestone in their relationship, and he thought of one more sentiment that he wanted to share. 

“I never did thank you for the other night.” He lifted heartfelt eyes to his lover. “Bofur...that was nothing like what I expected, and it was so wonderful.” 

The dwarf’s hand squeezed a little tighter, and a glint of mischief emerged onto his face. “Want to have another go?”

Bilbo blinked. “Come again?”

“Well, let’s try to use more polite terms,” Bofur corrected in jest with his other hand raised. “But aye. That’s one of the niceties about a relationship like this one. It offers a very special way of making amends.”

It was hard to miss the tantalization that he forced into each syllable. Bilbo found it far more comical than tempting, but he wasn’t opposed to the idea either. He decided to coyly test the waters.

“Are you certain we should do that?”

Bofur thought about it for a whole second. “Pretty certain we should.” 

Concern replaced his wiliness another second later. “What, you’re not comfortable?”

“It’s not that,” Bilbo assured. He smiled bashfully at his own superstition. “It’s just that...well, it seems like every time we so much as entertain the thought of doing that, something unfortunate happens.”

Understanding, Bofur leaned closer with dusky eyes and a confident grin.

“Nothing unfortunate ever happens to me,” he said in a low voice. “Just things that seem unfortunate at first. And if anything should fall this way after we’ve done what I propose, don’t worry. I’ll be right there next to you to tell you why it’s not unfortunate.”

 _That_ was rather tempting, Bilbo had to confess. 

* * *

They made love in the same fashion as last time, still not wanting to risk any pain. Bilbo didn’t know if it was the circumstances or just his lack of beginners’ nerves, but he found that second experience much more enjoyable. He might have told Bofur what a grand case it made for amending things in that way if he wasn’t afraid it might somehow drive them to have more arguments in the future.

It was some time afterwards, when the mid-day sun began shining through the gaps of the bedroom shutters, that the hobbit stirred from his dozing. He lay face-down over Bofur’s larger chest while the dwarf’s arms held him in place like a stuffed toy. Bilbo could tell from the other’s breathing that they were both awake, so he shifted his head to look at his partner with his chin pressed into that thicket of chest hair. 

“What was that song that you sang last time?” he asked.

Bofur’s eyes cracked open to look back down at him. “Hmm?”

“When you were carrying me through the house. You sang something to me. Was it a dwarvish song?”

Something unhappy pinched Bofur’s face before he answered. “It’s from a song by the men of the northern Blue Mountains. It’s called ‘The Farewell Cup.’”

Bilbo smiled teasingly. “Are sapphire-eyed burglars a thing of fancy among men?”

“No, I took a few liberties with the lyrics. The real words are about some fair maid with ruby lips. So typical.”

The hobbit let out the tiniest laugh. “Will you sing it to me? The whole thing?”

“You wouldn’t like it,” Bofur said flatly. “It’s too sad.”

Bilbo’s adoration wilted a little. “...And you thought to sing it during our first time together?”

“I picked the happiest verse to work with. Truth be told, the reason it came to mind at all was because I sang it in my head the day you left Erebor.” 

The dwarf gave a somber smile and added, “I wanted to paint a happier coat over that memory, I guess.”

The couple studied each other deeply for a few breaths, then Bilbo slowly moved forward and touched his lips to Bofur’s for a long, caring kiss.

* * *

Later that day, they had a more serious discussion about how they would present Bofur to the Shire. Since his introduction was already out of the way—with a massive wake of gossip behind it, no question—they instead moved on to try and plan his integration. In the end, Bilbo decided their best hope would be to include a trustworthy outsider in their brainstorming.

He mailed a letter the following day when things were calmer. The day following that, he got a responding letter and ventured across town to meet his correspondent. When he returned to Bag End late that evening, he came with his younger cousin Drogo.

Bofur never would have guessed from looking at them that the two hobbits were related. While Bilbo was thinner with a medium complexion and light, reddish-brown hair, Drogo was stouter and fairer-skinned with hair that was nearly black. He didn’t even have blue eyes, but hazel ones. Any doubts that they were of the same blood, however, left the dwarf’s mind after he greeted the other Mr. Baggins.

“Bilbo’s told me much about you today,” Drogo said brightly as he finished shaking Bofur’s hand. “Is it true you once lived in the Blue Mountains?” 

It surprised the miner to see genuine curiosity gazing up at him from his new acquaintance. “Aye, true as the hair on my chin.”

“Then perhaps you know a dwarf by the name of Frár? I met him fifteen autumns ago when he visited Buckland trapping and selling furs. Quite a cheerful fellow for such a messy trade.”

Bofur gave him a polite grin. “Can’t say I do. We dwarves are few in number, but not enough that we all know each other yet.” 

Drogo’s curiosity turned to worry. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make assumptions.”

“No, no! I wish I did know him. He sounds like a fine fellow to know if he’s brave enough to go adventuring so far from home.”

Bilbo twitched his nose, sensing that the comment was meant partially for him. Bofur glanced from him to his cousin, then donned a more vigilant expression.

“What else did Bilbo tell you about me?” he asked.

Drogo’s confidence had returned by then, and he help up an assuring hand. “All good things, I can promise. Many guarantees of what an upstanding friend of his you are.”

The mention of the word “friend” didn’t sit so well with Bofur, and Bilbo averted his gaze before the dwarf could cast any disapproval on him. Bofur had none to cast, but he did have some discomfort to disguise. He did that by changing the subject to something appropriately uncomfortable.

“I take it he didn’t mention my run-in with Lobelia the other day, then?”

Drogo’s eyes drifted down awkwardly in search of a decent way to approach that subject. Bilbo sensed this, and feeling that his entrance hall wasn’t the best place to discuss the matter, he led the three of them to a more comfortable spot. It wasn’t until they were settled at the table in the parlor with a pot of tea that the conversation resumed.

“It wasn’t just Bilbo that I heard it from,” Drogo explained carefully. “Most of what I know came from his letter, but word of mouth’s made it all the way to the village of Frogmorton, they say. I heard the story many times these past few days, including today. Just about every hobbit from here to the East Road seems aware that Mrs. Sackville-Baggins had an incident at her cousin-in-law’s door.” 

Bofur and Bilbo were both stiff in their seats by the end of the report. The dwarf regarded his teacup in his lap for a second before emptying it in one gulp. He was willing to believe right then that it would do him the same favor as a pint of mead.

He quickly set the cup out of harm’s way on the tray. “Do they know what that incident was?”

“Everyone I’ve heard tell it seems to think they do, but they all ‘know’ different versions. The only consistency, which Bilbo’s told me as well, seems to be...” Drogo blushed. “Well, your state of dress at the time.”

“Or lack of it,” Bofur noted lamely. 

After a pause, he leaned out sharply from his chair. “It’s a funny story, really. I was just getting ready to climb into the bath that morning when she came knocking. I wasn’t keen to waste time getting dressed again, and we dwarves aren’t so shy about our bodies as folk in these parts are, so I answered the door more or less as I was. A sore case of cultural differences was all it was.”

It was the story that he and Bilbo had agreed on the day before. He saw his partner squirming across the table from him, taking the unease about forcing him to lie and playing it off as unease about the story being told. Drogo appeared convinced by the whole act. The notion of Bofur’s tale actually seemed to amuse their guest, but the most he showed of that reaction was a quick smile and a quiet exhale of a laugh.

Drogo gestured to his bag in the entrance hall then. “That’s what Bilbo’s letter said as well. If it’s not going too far to ask, there was one other story I heard that the letter didn’t mention. Supposedly the Foxburr and Knotwise lads came snooping around Bag End the morning after the incident and got a bath of their own. Was there any truth to that?”

Bilbo seemed about ready to fall under the table as he scrambled to explain himself. There was no cover story for that incident; in fact, he had rather hoped it would never come back to him needing an explanation. Bofur took one look at him and seized the reins with another grin.

“There is,” he said offhandedly. “That was my doing too.”

Suddenly, Bilbo was very still.

Drogo was really fighting not to laugh now. “What happened?”

“It was another funny story,” Bofur went on. “See, I had just finished taking another bath, and the water was so dirty that I didn’t want to send it down the drain. Might’ve clogged it with a mighty hairball. So I thought I’d try my hand at tossing it out the diningroom window, but I had to throw it off to the side to keep it from landing in the garden.”

“Why not just throw it out the door?”

“Because I was lacking a state of dress again. It’s much wiser to air-dry a dwarf than to have him wipe down. Makes the towels stink like wet hair for a week otherwise.”

A snort escaped from their visitor at that. The most Bilbo could do was throw on a clumsy smile when his cousin looked to him for confirmation. Bofur added his own laugh until Drogo asked him another question.

“Do mishaps like that ever occur in the Blue Mountains?”

“Not so often as you’d think. Most anyone you ask would second that my kind doesn’t indulge in bathing very much.”

The dwarf sat back with another chuckle. Both hobbits joined him when they realized he was joking. The pair observed him with admiration after a minute—Bilbo for a very different reason than Drogo—then they looked to each other. 

“Cultural differences, you say?” the darker-haired halfling asked.

“Different from Hobbiton culture, to be sure,” Bilbo said.

“Well I think he’ll fit in just fine with the Brandybucks and the Tooks. We should start with them.”

Bofur’s eyes lit up with recognition. “Oh, the Tooks!” He motioned to Bilbo. “The ones you’re a part of!”

“That’s right,” Drogo acknowledged, “and my wife is a Brandybuck. We Bagginses may be traditional Shirelings, but those who marry into the name tend to fancy the outside world a bit more. I think the Tooks and Brandybucks would like very much to meet a dwarf who’s a friend to the family.”

Once again, Bofur politely weathered the word “friend.” 

“Well then I’d very much like to meet them as well,” he said with sincerity.

Drogo eagerly rose from his seat. “Alright then! I’ll get my bag. We’ve got planning to do.”

As the younger hobbit got up, a glimmer of something on his hand snared Bofur’s attention. The miner spied a thin, gold ring on one of Drogo’s fingers just before his guest scuttled out of the room. His sights moved to Bilbo while the couple was temporarily alone.

His lover met those sights with a hesitant, humbled expression. It was apparent that Bilbo wanted to say something, but the one eye he kept on his cousin made him hold his tongue. A grateful and regretful light filled the eye that he kept on Bofur, then he slid an inviting open hand across the table. 

The dwarf, smiling as always, gave that hand a comforting squeeze and let go before Drogo returned. 

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pollo Foxburr and Wilibold Knotwise are OC characters. I spent hours researching hobbit family trees online to try and find two from Tolkien's writings that were close in age to each other and just the right number of years younger than Bilbo (so their behavior would be age-appropriate enough and Bilbo dumping water on them wouldn't seem so mean) but when that didn't work, I just created two myself.
> 
> Pollo and Wilibold will play a part later in the story.


	7. Weaving Threads

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bilbo and Bofur discuss their races' different courting traditions and spend the evening at the Green Dragon.

The plan that the three concocted was actually rather simple. According to Drogo, the Green Dragon Inn in the nearby village of Bywater had become a popular establishment for many of the local Tooks and Brandybucks. Getting a large group of them to gather there would hardly be a challenge, if any effort would be required at all. The real challenge would be for a rarely seen Baggins and a dwarf who had recently been the subject of much talk to visit the inn without causing a scene.

That was the key to Drogo’s plan: discretion. As open-minded as his in-laws and the Tooks were, the pair from Bag End still didn’t want to dive headfirst into their midst. What was more, a certain conduct still had to be upheld around them, particularly since a great deal of their attention would be on the duo. He and Bilbo spent much of the evening educating Bofur about various tavern etiquettes, such as how to interact with fellow patrons, how to treat unattended food and beverages, and chiefly in the dwarf’s case, how to behave whenever someone broke into song, as visitors to the Green Dragon were known to do. Their pupil questioned the concept of following rules in a place that served inebriating drinks, but he was happy to heed their instructions. 

Drogo stayed the night in Bag End’s guest bedroom. For the sake of keeping up their “friendly” charade, Bofur retired to the house’s spare room while Bilbo somewhat guiltily remained in the master bedroom. Drogo left the next morning to see to his preparations, and the secret couple had another discussion on the matter of acceptable public behavior.

“Now suppose it’s really loud in there and I want to get your attention,” Bofur hypothesized, reclining on his and Bilbo’s bed once again. “Should I tap your shoulder, wave my hand in your face, or kick you under the table?”

Propped against a bedpost at the foot of the mattress, Bilbo ran a hand down his face. “A shoulder tap will suffice.”

“And if I want to tell you something private, am I allowed to lean close to say it in your ear, or should I try acting out my message with a series of grunts and gestures? And if so, how far away should I be?”

“You’re not as funny as you think you are, you know.”

“Nonsense,” the dwarf said casually. “I just don’t always have the most receptive audience.”

“I really don’t see what’s so difficult about this. We were friends for much longer than we’ve been courting. Just treat me the same way you always used to.”

“Right.” Bofur paused in thought. “So if you’re about to faint, should I still not try to catch you? ‘Cause since we _are_ courting now, that might seem a wee bit impolite after the fact.”

The hobbit dropped his head back to sigh at the ceiling. “Look, I know you don’t like keeping this a secret, but it really is what has to be done.”

“Well what about Drogo?” the other asked, becoming serious. “You said he’s trustworthy. How long are we supposed to lie to him while he does us favors like this?”

“If there _is_ a time to tell him the truth, it isn’t right now.” 

That still didn’t sit well with Bofur, but he had learned his lesson about trusting Bilbo’s judgment. He hoisted himself up to sit against the headboard and watched his partner, wanting to share something else that had been weighing on him. His eyes fell on the halfling’s small hands.

“I noticed Drogo had a ring on one finger. That was a wedding band, wasn’t it?”

Bilbo looked at him oddly. “How did you know?”

“The men in the Blue Mountains do the same thing when they marry. It’s a tradition.”

“It’s not really a tradition in the Shire. Just among the Brandybucks.”

“So what do other hobbits wear to show they’re married?”

“They don’t wear any symbols to show it, actually. Everyone just knows who’s married to whom.” 

Bofur pondered this. “Dwarves aren’t like that. We like to show our status as much as tell it.”

Bilbo livened up slightly. “Well, _courting_ hobbits will put matching flowers in each other’s hair early on to help inform people of their relationship.”

“But we can’t do that,” the dwarf finished for him.

Bilbo gave a dull confirming nod and glanced away. A dreary silence hung over the bed. Just then, as swiftly as he had brought the mood down, the dwarf got an idea to resurrect it.

“Although...maybe we could wear courting braids.”

Bilbo quirked his eyebrows. “What are those?”

Bofur was elated. “That’s just what I was hoping you’d say.”

He crawled to his puzzled bedmate. “See, my people are very secretive when it comes to our culture. You probably know more about our ways than any other non-dwarf west of Bree, and it’s not a very extensive knowledge.”

He ignored Bilbo’s offended pout and ran a finger through one of the hobbit’s curls. “When dwarves court, they braid a part of each other’s hair, and we recognize it as a symbol of their union.” He lowered his head to peer cleverly through his bangs. “...But non-dwarves wouldn’t recognize it as anything.”

The halfling became intrigued when he understood. “You’re saying...we could hide our courtship in plain sight?”

“It’ll be our little secret right on display,” Bofur elaborated gleefully, “and we can share a laugh over knowing something the rest of the Shire doesn’t.”

The excitement was contagious, even if the logic wasn’t. “Surely we could still share a laugh over it without the braids,” Bilbo pointed out more giddily than he meant to.

“We could,” Bofur conceded, “but I want us to have them. I want us to do something official so our _courtship_ will be official, just like all those hobbit couples’ are.”

It was the perfect compromise, Bilbo realized. Bofur could express their relationship status to his satisfaction without revealing anything, and the hobbit could keep their secret without feeling so guilty. Best of all, it was a piece of dwarvish heritage that Bofur could hold onto while he adopted the customs of the Shire. 

They just had to think up a good cover story for why his halfling housemate sported the same decoration. 

Bilbo put on a smile as he took his lover’s hands. “Then we’ll do it.”

After a few minutes of collecting thread, the pair sat cross-legged and facing each other on their bed once more. Bofur was plaiting the locks by Bilbo’s right temple into a thin braid that dangled in front of the hobbit’s ear. The dwarf had a charmed look about him all the while.

“You’re hair isn’t too short for this,” he purred, resting a concern that the other had expressed earlier. “It only seems that way because it’s curly. If you pull it straight, it’s no shorter than Ori’s when he was younger, and I’ve braided his hair plenty of times.”

Another concern suddenly came over Bilbo. “In what way?”

“In a friendly way,” Bofur assured him with a smirk.

The halfling laughed a little at himself and thought back on their quest for Erebor. Now that he did, he recalled quite a few times when he had seen the adolescent dwarf hovering at Bofur’s side. He even started to wonder if it was just a coincidence or perhaps the most sincere form of flattery that they both had worn knitted gray mittens on their journey.

“The first time I did it was on our little adventure, actually,” Bofur explained while his fingers kept at work. “After we took that trip down the river to Laketown and crossed paths with Bard. No one’s hairstyle came out of that one intact, and with his fingers so numb from the cold, the lad needed help resetting his braids in the back. He didn’t like the thought of his older brothers fixing his hair for him, making a fuss over him, so he came to me to fix it—and then I let him fix mine too. From that day on, we were each other’s official back-of-the-head braiders.”

He made a pleasant chortle at the memory. “Typical young person. More likely to ask a friend for help than a relative.”

Bilbo spotted something troubled but fleeting pass through the dwarf’s eye after those words. He would have dwelled on it if Bofur hadn’t finished and tied off his braid just then.

“There.” The bearded fellow leaned back to marvel at his creation. “All done.”

The hobbit lifted a hand to the woven tress and moved it to where he could see it. The sight of it raised the corners of his mouth. He wouldn’t have expected such large, rough fingers to produce such dainty work, and yet there was his courting braid, narrow and neat with green and yellow threads strung through it.

He let it hang free and lifted a shy gaze. “How do I look?”

Bofur’s eyes glittered lovingly. “Like a part of the family.”

The dwarf pressed a kiss into the base of the braid and turned to the box of sewing spools on the bed. He cut some strands of red and blue thread, much longer than the strands in Bilbo’s hair, and handed them over to his dear one. He quickly dismantled his right pigtail then.

“My turn!” he chirped, and Bilbo set to it.

* * *

It took a lot more time to turn out Bofur’s courting braid, not just because he had more hair to work with, but also because Bilbo was a hopeless perfectionist. The Shireling’s smaller and more nimble hands helped a lot with the process, though his inexperience with plaiting hair bungled things more than once. For all the direction he needed from Bofur before the end, he set the entire tress himself, and while it was still clearly the work of someone unpracticed, his partner said that made it all the more personal.

That was how they wore their hair that evening when they set out together across the bridge to Bywater and the Green Dragon.

Drogo’s advice had been to let Bofur look like the dwarf that he was that night. No bare feet, no trimmed beard, and no hobbit clothes, although the lack of any that would fit him had ruled out that option anyway. The goal was to show the people in the tavern exactly what they were getting: a member of another race who was still perfectly capable of good manners. The only restraint he had suggested was to leave the hat at home, as seeing it on Bofur’s head after where the tales said it had previously been was liable to turn a few stomachs.

Bilbo’s cousin was waiting for the pair outside the tavern entrance when they arrived. Accompanying him was his wife Primula, a pretty hobbit woman with dark blonde curls and the most striking blue eyes Bofur had ever seen. She was very gracious and even a little flattered when he accidentally blurted out how blue her eyes were upon their introduction, so much so that she jokingly offered him her wedding-banded hand a second time. After a few last-second tips and reminders from Drogo, the four stepped inside together.

The wave of quietness that swept through the room when Bofur entered was inevitable. As he had been instructed, he answered it with an unperturbed smile and nod, then let his three companions usher him to a table. The noisy merriment was in full swing again within minutes.

That hardly meant that the dwarf was out of the woods. Most of the patrons that night were indeed Tooks and Brandybucks, or so Bilbo told him, and they were indeed rearing to meet a family friend from the mountains, as Drogo had predicted. They bustled around the newcomer’s table throughout his visit, some coming to greet him and then move on, others hanging around at a respectful distance to observe him. A few were even bold enough to converse with him, however briefly. Bofur tried to weather all of these curiosities with a modest bearing, but it was plain to anyone with eyes that he loved being the center of so much attention.

There were hobbits from other families present as well. They mostly kept to themselves at the far ends of the room, which was fine by Bilbo. The only one of them to come near the table with the dwarf was Hamfast Gamgee, the same gardener that he had asked to take care of his flowers during his attempted return to Erebor. That reason alone put him on edge when Hamfast began chatting with him and Bofur. The last thing he wanted was for a mention of that intended long absence to come up and inspire his dwarf to ask him a few questions.

It was a miracle that Bilbo didn’t choke on his ale when Drogo invited Hamfast to sit at their table with them. The next miracle was that he didn’t topple right out of his chair when that invitation was accepted. He spent the next half hour hunched over his cup trying to look composed while the gardener gabbed on with the rest of his party, ready to spring in and change the subject if it strayed too close to Bag End. Their conversation eventually turned to the matter of last names, something that a dwarf like Bofur wasn’t so familiar with, and that turned into a lesson on the many family trees of the Shirefolk.

Feeling that his secret was safe for the time being, Bilbo expanded his worries outward to the Green Dragon’s other visitors. 

He saw people looking his way. The majority of them were focusing on Bofur, but a few seemed to avert their eyes when Mr. Baggins’s fell on them. He also saw a lot of those people motioning towards his table, including one woman seated at the bar. She pointed towards him, then consulted her friends as she pantomimed running two fingers down something in front of her right ear. Bilbo automatically raised a hand in front of his courting braid, pretending to scratch his head while he covered it.

Most of all, he saw people talking. Talking while they watched him and Bofur, talking while they pointed, and talking while they hid in their corners. The more he saw these murmurs without hearing any of them, the more Bilbo felt a desire and even a need to hear them. That desire and that need grew so powerful that they sent his fingers fleeing into his pocket to grab his ring.

He wasn’t grabbing it to protect it, but to consider using it.

It would be easy enough to manage. All he would have to do was excuse himself from the room and slip on his magic device when he was out of view, and then he could dash around the tavern as much as he wanted until his ears collected every word. He was just piecing together an alibi for his surely long disappearance when Primula’s voice pulled him right out of his scheming thoughts.

He awkwardly faced his company again. “Beg your pardon?” 

“Did that tree in your garden really come from your adventure ten years ago?” Primula reiterated. She seemed rather hopeful for a positive answer. “Bofur was just telling us that you found the acorn outside of a house near Mirkwood.”

Bilbo turned to the dwarf in shock. He had told Bofur the origins of his growing oak tree during their first week together in Bag End, back when they had been determined to talk about everything except the state of their relationship. Where he found its acorn was the only part of its backstory that he had shared, and he had instantly regretted even saying that. His partner, seated beside him at the table tonight, gazed right back at him with a coaxing expression and no shame for having brought it up. 

The hobbit sent the taller being a sideways glare when he sensed what was going on. Bofur wanted him to talk about their quest, and the dwarf was pushing him into it by putting him on the spot in front of three captivated listeners. Bilbo turned to Primula, Drogo, and Hamfast again with a more pleasing demeanor.

If Bofur wanted him to talk about their quest, then he would do just that.

“It’s true. I did find that acorn near the forest of Mirkwood. And speaking of Mirkwood, you’ll find a kingdom deep within its borders that is home to some very delightful elves.”

All of the poise drained from Bofur’s face.

Too awestruck to notice, Hamfast leaned in from the other side of the table. “You’ve met _elves_ , Mr. Bilbo?”

“Oh yes, so many of them. And if I may say so, they offer such _wonderful_ , absolutely _lovely_ accommodations and hospitality to their guests in Mirkwood.” 

With that, Bilbo sat back in his chair as smug as a tomcat. 

“But tonight isn’t about me,” he said with false modesty. “I’m sure Bofur would love to tell you more about it.”

The three hobbits across the table took his cue to stare at the dwarf next. Bofur traded a lengthy string of nods and a forced grin with Bilbo for their sakes. Seeing that all really was fair in love and war, the dwarf turned back to his audience and proceeded with the sugar-coated tale. 

The account that followed was so entertaining that Bilbo forgot all about the onlookers talking around him.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I owe most of my research on hobbit and dwarf courting traditions to fanart and other fanfiction. :)
> 
> Also, Sassy Bilbo strikes again!


	8. The Art of Cultivation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While keeping close to home, Bilbo recruits Bofur to help him with some overdue gardening.

It was decided that Bilbo would only ease Bofur out of the house in the weeks following their night at the Green Dragon. A decent sized crowd of mostly decent folk had gotten their look at the rugged mountain-dweller, and so it was best to take a few steps back for the time being and let his presence settle with them. The dwarf didn’t mind being reeled in again since he no longer had to stay cooped inside Bag End, but his hobbit couldn’t think of very many ways for him to pass the time without leaving its vicinity. 

It turned out that Bilbo didn’t need to look for ideas any farther than his garden. A person could easily occupy himself for days maintaining those vast, flowery grounds, and someone who knew nothing about maintaining them could eat up even more days learning how to. That was why on the morning after their excursion, the couple found themselves strolling down the walkway in front of Bag End’s hill with an assortment of tools in hand.

In the aftermath of last night’s conversation, it was only natural for both of them to stop when they came to Bilbo’s oak tree.

The hobbit had chosen quite a keepsake from his journey. The tree had already grown to many times his height and twice his width, and the little nubs clustered at the tip of each branch showed that it had sprouted several acorns of its own in the past ten years. The leaves that it had left on this early November day were in the process of fading from orange to brown.

Bofur leaned into one of its remaining patches of shade to look up. As always, he saw it as his duty to break the silence.

“I remember what your garden looked like before you planted this. I saw the place the morning we first set out. The tree really makes it look different now.” 

Bilbo fumbled with his tools. “Well, I suppose it does have a way of overshadowing the older plants, so to speak.” 

He folded his lips in just then, sensing that he was stumbling into a metaphor. “And the roots of it have reshaped the surface a bit.”

Bofur shifted his eyes towards the halfling without turning his head. For all his lack of subtlety, even he sensed that they weren’t entirely talking about the tree anymore. He had to twist his brain a little to come up with something equally covert to say.

“Do you like it?”

There was a pause, then Bilbo straightened up dismissively. “It’s been planted, and that’s that.”

The dwarf finally turned to him. “Why did you plant it?”

An antsy fit seized Bilbo at that. He glanced to and away from Bofur, shrugged one shoulder and arched his eyebrows, then flashed an uncomfortable smile at the oak. 

“Because I said that I would,” was his answer.

He stopped fidgeting suddenly with a dismal, inward look. “And...I wanted to give it a chance to live.”

Neither one of them spoke again for close to a minute. Bofur had a much better grasp of what they were talking about now, and it saddened him to look at Bilbo with that understanding. He broke the tension as best as he could by patting the other’s shoulder.

“You did what you could for it. That’s what matters.”

Bilbo revived himself with a loud sniff and nodded. He was far from convinced, if Bofur was in fact telling him what he thought the dwarf was, but he didn’t want their discussion to go any further. His partner fell into step behind him again as they moved on from the tree.

That was the last time for a while that they would talk about Erebor’s reclamation—metaphor or not.

* * *

Their objective was to prepare the garden for the winter. Bilbo, or rather Hamfast, would have carried out the task weeks ago had Bofur not turned up in the Shire, but the drama of hiding his guest-turned-partner had kept the hobbit from his flowers all that time. He now had to scramble to dig up and pot as many of them as he could before the frost got to them. Having a helper who had done their share of digging in the past was a promising asset.

Suffice to say, mining didn’t always make one a skilled gardener. Bofur seemed convinced that the soft soil was really solid rock in disguise, and he plunged into it with his tiny weeder and trowel like he thought he was wielding his old mattock. He was somewhat reluctant to help again after the first day, feeling that he had done more harm than good, but Bilbo was patient with him. That was partly because the halfling doubted they could save most of his flowers so late in the year anyway.

Along with the lessons in labor came lessons about the garden itself. While his dwarf dug more and more cautiously, Bilbo filled his ear with lectures on each specimen. He explained which flowers were which, as well as which ones were actually weeds. He also pointed out his favorite flowers, the pansies, and went on to describe all of the different colors that existed for them. 

Most of this was just noise to Bofur, who was very much clueless on the whole subject of plant life. He was really just glad to hear Bilbo talking about something with enthusiasm.

He did, however, take a liking to one particular sort of flower. Bilbo told him they were called forget-me-nots—an easy name to remember. They were such a pure, crisp, cobalt blue that the miner had to stop what he was doing when he first arrived at them. To him, each one’s petals looked like a set of jewels, like five sapphires blazing brilliantly against the dull hues of earth. 

Bofur had so many memories of finding sapphires in the mines. Not enough to have made him rich before Thorin’s quest, but enough for him to decide that they were his favorite stones. He had come to learn from all his years of scrounging for them that they came in many colors, virtually every hue imaginable, but the blue ones had always been his proudest finds. 

He felt the same way about the forget-me-nots, handling the blue ones with much more care than the pink, purple, or white ones that Bilbo had planted next to them.

It was nearly a week into their endeavor when some of the locals of Hobbiton began itching for another look at the dwarf. That interruption came in the late afternoon, while the pair was right in the middle of that day’s gardening. Bilbo was nearly up to his elbows in dirt when his sharp ears caught the sound of whispers not far behind him.

The hobbit withdrew from his flowers to listen closer. He had to nudge Bofur when his oblivious partner kept working. When the whispering stopped, they both turned towards the weeding bucket between them in order to glimpse at the front yard’s fence. Bilbo was on the verge of reaching protectively into his pocket until he spotted the snoops.

There were four of them in all, and the eldest couldn’t have been more than seven years old. Four little fauntlings, two boys and two girls, were all hunkered down together to spy on Bag End’s strange new resident. The nosy quartet was keeping very still and very quiet now, unaware of how poor a picket fence was at concealing them.

Bofur rose to the occasion like a true showman. Pretending not to see the children, he climbed to his feet and stretched his powerful dwarf arms over his head to unwind from his digging. He lumbered over to the bench by the front door then and sat down, feeling those eight curious eyes on him every step of the way.

The miner continued his “act” by removing his hat and dusting it off, then he smoothed back the hair on the crown of his head. After that, he “absently” unhooked the long wolf fang that hung from his left ear, scratched at the empty hole in his lobe, and reinserted his earring. He followed up by unbraiding and rebraiding one of his pigtails, as well as brushing the dirt from his beard and the ends of his mustache. The only hobbit not endlessly fascinated by this display was Bilbo, who merely shook his head at the silliness of it all. 

Bofur’s next trick was to bend down and untie the laces of one of his boots. This actually earned a few muffled sounds of awe from his onlookers, who had probably never even heard of footwear in their lives. He paused for a few seconds once that was done, building the suspense. At long last, he grabbed it by the heel and wrenched it off.

All four children leapt up screaming and dashed away down the road, leaving the dwarf in a sudden petrified stupor.

Bilbo scoffed to himself and resumed his digging.

Bofur looked to him with wide-eyed horror. “What did I do?”

“I believe they think you just tore off one of your feet,” Bilbo answered wryly. “Of course, I wouldn’t blame anyone for fleeing at the sight of a dwarf removing his boot. Now please put it back on before that smell wilts the begonias.”

* * *

They finished clearing the garden two days later, and none too soon. The dawn after that brought a thin, icy sheen to the entire front of Bag End, including one side of Bilbo’s oak tree. Such weather was unusual though not unheard of for this time of year, and this taste of “Old Man Winter yawning too early” made Bilbo very happy to have all of his flowers tucked away in pots on the cozier sides of his windows. He would have lost at least half of them to the frost, had he been working alone.

In spite of the cold, Mr. Baggins felt daring enough to venture outside shortly after waking and sit on his bench for an early morning smoke. It was a habit he had buried at the end of his youth, when he had grown into a supposedly more sensible hobbit, but today he was in the mood again to blow rings around himself in the November briskness. Only the eye of a longtime smoker could tell which of the clouds over his head came from his pipe and which ones were his own breath. 

More than an hour had passed when a much groggier Bofur creaked open the door behind him.

“You _really_ never wear shoes in the Shire?” the dwarf asked, eyeing Bilbo’s bare feet as the first chill nipped at him.

Bilbo greeted him with a smile and wiggled his hairy toes. “We Shirefolk never need them, not even in the dead of winter.”

“I might need to pass on that custom,” the other quipped, making his way over to sit next to the halfling. “My folk might be made for the mountains, but only for the insides of them.” 

Bilbo watched him with amusement while taking another drag. They had a brief awkward moment when Bofur realized he was sitting too close to his housemate and quickly scooted to a more platonic looking distance. Their attention went to the frosted, empty soil in the garden.

Feeling somewhat inspired after their moment, Bofur sent Bilbo a clever sideways glance. “I’ll wager you’re mighty pleased that we got all your flowers taken care of in time for this.”

“I am,” the hobbit agreed. “It would have taken me twice as long to do it alone. We got through it together quite economically.”

Bofur looked to the door. “Well you know, with the weather being as it is, freezing everything to the core, it might be a good idea for us to go back inside and...do some cultivating.”

Bilbo flicked his pipe stem away from his mouth with a peculiar look. His wits returned then, and he went right back to smoking. He was impressed to hear his partner making use of one of the terms he had taught him that week, but not _that_ impressed just yet.

“And what sort of 'cultivating' did you have in mind doing?” he asked, never looking away from the garden.

The dwarf shrugged coyly. “The usual. Warming things up, moving things around.” 

“Oh, it’s much too early in the day for that,” Bilbo teased in his most serious tone. “Besides, you wouldn’t want to cultivate things too frequently. They might not grow properly if you overdo it.”

Bofur pretended to be insulted. “Are you saying I’m too rough with the equipment?”

“Not at all. Just that you’re overzealous.”

“Well maybe you should show me the right way to do it. Make things more economical, that would.”

The hobbit concluded by puffing out a final, large smoke ring. After watching it drift slowly up over the hill, he turned to his partner.

“I suppose I could use a good warming up by now,” he consented at long last.

The couple had grown quite fluent in metaphors over the past week.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m so naughty. XD
> 
> It took me a little while of stumbling around on flower websites before I found a species blue enough for Bofur to compare to sapphires. I’m tempted to turn the forget-me-nots into something symbolic to the story, considering their name, though I’m still working on that concept.


	9. Of Shares and Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During the winter, Bofur discusses his share of Erebor's treasure with Bilbo.

The winter months proved to be an ideal time for easing Bofur into the public eye. His appearances in town still caused some fuss, however slightly, and the frigid weather would give him and Bilbo the perfect excuse to lie low for a few days afterwards without looking like they were deliberately hiding. Drogo and Primula would visit Bag End from time to time to check on their progress and enjoy an evening of stories and songs, as well as to help Bilbo further educate his housemate on how to behave around certain families in Hobbiton. For the most part though, Mr. Baggins and the dwarf were each other’s only company.

It was on one particularly isolating February day when the snowed-in couple sat down at the desk in Bilbo’s study for a talk. Bofur had been the one to request it, and he had retrieved a large folder stuffed with papers from his travel pack for the discussion. His demeanor as he settled at the desk and began to explain himself was at best an uncomfortable one.

“This isn’t something I was looking forward to,” he admitted, toying with the ties on the folder. “I feel slimy even bringing it up, but this was gonna have to be seen to sooner or later.”

Bilbo, seated off to one end of the desk, had a deeply concerned look on his face by then. Bofur got to his point when he saw that.

“I still own a share of that treasure.” There was no need to clarify which treasure he meant. “It’s nowhere near as much as they promised in the beginning of course, but it’s nothing to sneeze at either.”

The dwarf wrinkled his nose to himself. “I don’t need it. Truth be told, after what happened in the process of getting it, I never _wanted_ it, but Glóin talked me into keeping it in case a need arose. I talked to him about it again before I left the mountain to come here, and I ended up with these.”

He opened the folder then and pulled out the first two papers. Bilbo leaned over the desk for a better look once they were laid out on top of it. They were a large envelope addressed to Erebor and a lengthy document that looked like a contract.

The hobbit lifted his head to Bofur for further explanation, and the other obliged.

“If I send these back to him with my authentication, it won’t be my treasure anymore. I’d do it in a heartbeat, but since you and I are...” —he tugged lightly at his courting braid— “...in this together, I thought you should have a say in it too. If we both authenticate it, the treasure belongs to both of us.”

“You had a contract made up for this just in case we became a couple?” Bilbo asked in disbelief.

“I was being hopeful,” Bofur said lamely, scratching the back of his head. 

"Does Glóin know what you were being hopeful of?"

The dwarf smiled, understanding. "He suspects, I'm sure, but he said nothing of it. Anyway, there it is. If you want the treasure, we can split it.”

Bilbo needed a minute to absorb this. He sat back in his chair with the side of his knuckle pressed contemplatively to his lips and an almost grim look in his eyes. Once all of the facts sank in, his mind was made up.

“What becomes of it if I decline?” he asked.

Bofur slid a hand over the contract. “I don’t want that to sway you.”

“There’s not much to sway. I’ve passed on a share of that treasure before. I’m just curious.”

The dwarf shifted in his own seat. “Well, if you pass on this share too, one half of it goes to the city of Dale.” He sent Bilbo a reminiscing glance then and added, “The other half gets split into fourteen shares.”

“Who gets those?”

“Bombur’s children.”

Bilbo paused in thought. “But...you’ve said he only has thirteen of them. Who gets the final share?”

It took a long time for Bofur to answer. When he did, he stared at the desktop instead of his partner.

“Ori gets it.”

Bilbo tilted his head, intrigued by this second and more prominent mention of the younger dwarf. Feeling those blue eyes on him, Bofur reluctantly met them with green ones. It was clear to both of them that another explanation was required, so the dwarf relented.

“He was such a wee little pebble on that quest. Younger even than you, if you’ll believe that.” He lowered and shook his head. “He didn’t take what happened at the end of it very well, and I don’t think having to write his account of it so soon after did him any favors. I mean sure, eventually he came around again and seemed fine and content enough...but there was just something about him that made you worry a bit. You know? I kept thinking back on all the times I saw him pal around with Fíli and Kíli, and all the times I saw Thorin save him on the way to that mountain, and I always enjoyed the lad’s company anyway, so I took him under my wing.”

He arched his eyebrows and teetered thoughtfully in his chair. “I was a friend, not a parent or a guardian. I was someone he could talk to; someone who wasn’t gonna judge him or smother him or lecture him for an hour. That was one of the reasons it took me so long to come here after you. I wanted to be there for him.”

Bilbo was straining to remain poised. “What made you decide to come here?” 

Bofur became a twinge bashful. “I got comfortable talking to him as well. I mentioned you to him once.” He stressed this by holding up a finger. “Just once, a few months ago. I said that I missed you and wished that we could have parted on better terms. I didn’t say how we parted, just that I had regrets about it.

“A week after that came his fifty-third birthday, and I gave him a present. I carved it myself. It was a figurine of a bear rearing up and roaring. He always loved bears.”

Bilbo nodded absently, thinking back again. He remembered how nosy and brimming with questions Ori had been when the skin-changer Beorn had first chased their company into his house.

“Anyway,” Bofur continued, “he told me a few days later that he had a present to give me in exchange. I said to him, ‘That’s not how birthday presents work, Ori.’ But he insisted, so I gave in.”

The hobbit frowned at this. He didn’t see what was so odd about someone giving out a present on their birthday. To him, the notion of that person _receiving_ a present on their birthday was the oddity.

Bofur tapped his fingers awkwardly on his knees before reaching into the folder again. “This is what he gave me.”

He carefully pulled another piece of parchment from the collection, then he handed it facedown to Bilbo. The hobbit accepted it and slowly turned it over. What he found on the other side left him stunned. 

A perfect likeness of himself, sketched in ink, gazed back up at him from the yellowed surface.

“That’s about the same look _I_ had the first time I saw it,” Bofur commented as he watched Bilbo’s reaction. “Ori told me then that I should go to see you if I missed you.” He shrugged. “He said he’d be alright without me, so I came here.”

Bilbo’s lips were flapping silently like a trout’s. The hobbit squirmed and gave the sketch a few sideways stares, overwhelmed with surprise and flattery over the gesture. In the end, he lowered it to his lap and had to ask about something else.

“But why give him a piece of your fortune? He has his own share, doesn’t he?”

“Aye, he doesn’t really need it either,” Bofur confessed with a nod. “In fact, he’ll probably inherit Dori and Nori’s shares on top of his someday.” 

He gestured to the contract again. “This would just be some emergency coin for him in case any problems come up in his path—injuries, home repairs, older brothers needing bailed from prison. I’d rather he paid for those things out of my pocket than his.”

Bilbo watched the other, waiting for him to look up. Caution tinted the hobbit’s expression all the while. When he wasn’t acknowledged, he forced a smile and leaned over the desk again.

“Well then I especially wouldn’t want to keep that share from him.” He nudged the contract towards his dwarf. “It’s all yours, Bofur. Go right ahead and authenticate.” 

Bofur did acknowledge him then, looking like the halfling had snapped him out of a trance. Once he confirmed that he was free to waive the treasure, he motioned to the small inkpot sitting at Bilbo’s end of the desk. The pot was moved closer, and a more cheerful light came over the miner as he took hold of the feathery quill sticking out of its top.

Bilbo kept his discomfort masked as he watched Bofur dab the quill’s tip on the lip of the inkpot. Confusion seeped through his mask when Bofur dried the tip completely and set the quill down on the desk. The hobbit was downright confounded when his partner proceeded to dip all ten of his fingers into the ink.

The dwarf thought nothing of this. He quickly brought his stained fingers back to the contract, then he pressed them to it one at a time. Ten black fingerprints were left in a row along the line at the bottom of the document.

It occurred to Bilbo then what was going on. Bofur was illiterate. Glóin must have taken his fingerprints back in Erebor, knowing that the miner wouldn’t be able to sign the contract, and must have been waiting to receive a matching set.

He eyed the rest of that long, wordy contract. He didn’t doubt Glóin’s integrity, but the thought that Bofur had never actually read it himself was troubling. Bilbo grabbed one corner of the paper after the dwarf had finished his “authentication.”

“May I read this?” he asked warily.

Bofur was too relieved by what he had done to care. “You can do whatever you please with it, as long as you mail it when you’re finished.”

Bilbo accepted his blessing with a less than chipper look and pulled the document closer. Perusing it, he found that it stated all of the same things Bofur had told him, saying who had to authenticate it if they chose to keep or waive the treasure and detailing how the share would be divided if they chose the latter. After a few minutes of reading and murmuring the terms under his breath, the hobbit was satisfied.

“Alright then,” he said. He reached for the envelope, which Glóin had also likely prepared. “I can see to this while you wash your hands.”

“Wash my hands of it, you mean,” Bofur said, beaming.

He gave Bilbo a kiss on the cheek and got up. The dwarf sauntered across the room and stopped at the door as something else came to his mind. He turned around with a slightly more put on grin. 

“Can I have a drink after that?”

“I’ll get it for you,” Bilbo droned. “Just wash up.”

As his partner went chuckling into the hallway, the halfling stayed where he sat with the contract in his hands. He studied Bofur’s fingerprints at the bottom, then with another worrisome thought, he looked down to the sketch in his lap. A wave of nerves made him suddenly tuck Ori’s artwork back into the folder and hurry away with the other papers to find some postage.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Regarding Ori's age -** I know that Tolkien's writings say Gimli was 62 years old at the time of _The Hobbit_ and considered too young to join the quest for Erebor, and therefore Ori would have to be older than that, but I'm going by movie logic. Ori in the movies is said to be the equivalent of a 17-year-old, and since Middle-Earth dwarves live an average of 250 years, that would put him in his early 40's during the quest. Assuming that Bilbo is still 50 years old in the movies, Ori would actually be younger than him.


	10. All's Fair in Spuds and War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bilbo’s paranoia about his relatives drives him to give Bofur reading and writing lessons, which results in a few antics from the stubborn dwarf.

The arrival of spring was normally a time that Bilbo looked forward to. Even in the years between his adventure and his reunion with Bofur, that wave of warmth in April that melted the snow and made fresh flowers blossom was a source of peace and relief to the hobbit. He was rather looking forward to that change of seasons after his first winter with his new partner, both for his own wellbeing and for the sake of sharing something he enjoyed with the dwarf.

Much like his return home from Erebor, however, the reality of Shire life greeted his hopes with a nasty slap of disappointment.

For as much as he and Bofur had tried to stay out of sight throughout the winter, it was clear that they had not stayed out of mind. Whispers and mumbles of “Mad Baggins” and his indecent housemate plagued him every time he ventured into town, even when he didn’t bring Bofur with him. There was more than one occasion where he also heard people speak of him as “the Dwobbit,” which unsettled him so much that he was tempted to undo his courting braid until he was finished with the day’s errands. The reason he refrained was because he knew he couldn’t properly reset it on his own, and he would likely be welcomed home with questions from Bofur about its sloppy condition.

Just as unsettling were the disapproving glares that Bilbo had to endure in town. Hearing mutters behind his back gnawed at him like nothing else, but the sight of a scowl being aimed right at him fed that fear by showing how merited it really was. Worst of all were the hobbits he was once well acquainted with who now leered at him and didn’t care to speak to his face anymore. Even when he tried to have friendly words with them, they would rebuff him.

“I see your tubers came in quite nicely this year, Mr. Worrywart,” he attempted with a smile in the marketplace one morning.

“See them is already more than I’d like you to do with them,” the large-nosed elder grumbled back to him. “Please move along. You’re blocking the stand.”

Two people who did desire to speak to Bilbo were, unfortunately, the only people that he wished _would_ distance themselves from him. Otho and Lobelia Sackville-Baggins were ripe for the hunt now that winter was behind them, and they could usually follow the trail of unpleasant talk straight to Mr. Baggins. He usually was able to give them the slip just as easily, but even the former burglar had limits to his skills. 

One afternoon, the feeling of them dogging him through the marketplace was so prevalent and the feeling that they would catch up to him so unbearable that Bilbo finally did put his magic ring to use. He was lucky enough to be near a pair of large tents, and darting into the space between them, he managed to slip his golden prize onto his finger without anyone seeing him vanish. The image of Otho and Lobelia scratching their heads in a fluster was the first truly gratifying thing to grace his eyes that season, even though it was blurred and smudged by the effects of his ring.

It was due to this close call with his covetous relatives that Bilbo offered to make Bofur the beneficiary in his will. The dwarf was flattered by that offer, but politely declined it, saying that he didn’t like the thought of reaping benefits from their courtship. The hobbit suspected that it was really the thought of becoming saddled with Bag End and stuck alone in the Shire someday that his partner didn’t like. Not that he could blame the mountaineer for that; Bofur was bound to outlive him by several decades, and that would be a long time to spend grieving and feeling unwanted.

Bilbo knew full well what a miserable existence that made for.

Something that he did push for though was correcting Bofur’s illiteracy. It haunted him to no end that the miner had been so quick to turn over all of his wealth on nothing but the honor system, and if word of that ever reached the wrong ears, who knew how those people might try taking advantage of the gullible, uneducated dwarf? For that matter, who knew how they might try using him as a tool to take advantage of his housemate Mad Baggins instead?

He broached the matter much more graciously a few days after they had spoken of his will. It was apparent from almost the first breath that Bofur had no use for—or rather, no interest in—learning to read and write. Bilbo was persistent though, and after a couple more tries, he convinced the other to humor him for a few lessons. 

Humor him was about the only thing Bofur did during those lessons, and Bilbo found very little humor in it, ironically. They would sit at the desk in Bag End’s study with a stack of paper each afternoon, and for an hour or so, the halfling would write down the alphabet and get his dwarf to copy it as neatly as possible. Come the next day’s session, Bofur would have no recollection of anything he had supposedly learned.

“Sorry Bilbo,” he said after the third relapse, “but it’s tough to memorize a thing like this when there’s no reason to.”

“I’ve _told_ you the reason to memorize it,” Bilbo replied with dwindling patience. “It’s so these people can’t trick you into anything.”

Bofur put on his ugliest, most menacing face. “You really think ‘these people’ are gonna try to play a trick on me?”

The hobbit was undaunted. “Believe me, after your little stunt with Lobelia, you’re more a buffoon than a barbarian to them.”

“Well then it shouldn’t surprise you that a buffoon has trouble memorizing things.”

Once he determined that talking his way out of his lessons wouldn’t work, Bofur moved on to a new strategy. While Bilbo would give his instructions, the dwarf would stare at him dreamily, one hand propping up his scruffy chin, and say whatever he could think of to sway his tutor towards another pastime.

“You know, when the sunlight hits your eyes at just the right angle, they sparkle like sapphires,” he purred on one occasion.

“A valiant effort,” Bilbo dryly deflected, “but I know what you’re doing.”

Bofur grinned. “Is it working?”

“No, now keep writing your ‘G’s’ to the end of this line.”

Flattery wasn’t the reluctant pupil’s only weapon. On rarer occasions, when Bilbo would guide Bofur’s hand along the paper as they held the quill together, the miner would run a calloused thumb up and down over the hobbit’s fingers. Confound it if that didn’t almost work a few times.

Nevertheless, Mr. Baggins was able to contain himself. He vowed that no matter how tempting the prospect, he wasn’t going to do what Bofur wanted until the dwarf appeased him with his lessons first. Maybe that would give his lover a good reason to memorize those letters.

This boycott started to take effect two weeks into their sessions. The only problem was that Bilbo was the one feeling that effect. As he lay awake that night, wondering if he would ever make progress with Bofur or sentence himself to another sixty-one years of abstinence, the sound of his bedmate humming beside him flooded his ears. He recognized its tune as “The Farewell Cup,” but he couldn’t tell if Bofur was humming it in his sleep or in an attempt to lure the curious, eager hobbit across the bed. 

He was very close to fleeing the room altogether when he paused in his listening and suddenly got a brilliant idea. The halfling did leave the room after that, but for a very different reason than he had originally intended.

Bofur woke the next morning to find nothing but a note lying on Bilbo’s side of the bed. He eyed the message on the paper uncertainly, unable to read it of course, and he took it with him from the room after he dressed himself. Intrigue colored his face by the time he reached the kitchen, where an apron-clad Bilbo was preparing their first breakfast.

“What’s this?” the dwarf asked, holding up the note.

“It’s a song,” Bilbo explained pleasantly as he continued working over the stove. “I came down with a touch of creativity last night and wrote it myself.”

Bofur’s interest piqued. “Will you read it to me?”

Bilbo turned off the stove then and made his way towards the table with his frying pan full of potatoes. As he passed Bofur, he rose onto his hairy toes and planted a kiss on the tip of the other’s nose.

“No,” he declared sweetly.

The sight of his partner’s stunned expression before the hobbit moved along was the second truly gratifying thing to grace his eyes that season.

* * *

Bofur didn’t like his situation one bit.

He still thought it was absurd that Bilbo wanted him to learn a skill as pointless as reading so far into his life. Not once in all his one hundred and fifty-six years had the miner and toymaker ever had a use for literature, and for all of his hobbit’s fretting, he saw no use for it in his future either. As far as he was concerned, it was cruel to deny him a charming little song just because he knew his lot in life, and the fact that someone should want so desperately to “improve” him was more than a tad insulting.

He made no objections to Bilbo’s challenge, though. He could play right along if this was going to turn into a game of wits. The way he saw it, his pint-sized teacher had never specified that he had to learn to read in order to find out the lyrics on that note, so any means of finding them out were fair use.

That was why, after Bilbo left Bag End that same day to run a few errands in Bywater, the dwarf gathered some carefully chosen cargo into a sack and went on an outing of his own.

Hobbiton’s marketplace mesmerized Bofur every time he set foot in it. That plethora of colors and lively sounds on a sunny afternoon was unlike anything he had ever seen in Erebor or the Blue Mountains. It put him in mind of the markets in Dale, equally enjoyable with its fresh air and earthy aromas, except he had to look down to see the faces in this crowd instead of up. 

He never noticed any of the icy stares or scornful comments that Bilbo insisted the place was rampant with. Whether that made him ignorant or the other paranoid, he didn’t care. There were only friendly, simple people wherever he looked and listened, and he felt no need to go digging for worms in that apple.

It was an extra delight that one of the first people he came across in that friendly hoard happened to be someone that he recognized.

“What brings you out here alone, Mr. Bofur?” Hamfast Gamgee asked him as they sat at one of the picnic tables by the river. 

Bofur squirmed at this designation. “Please, Ham, I’m not the ‘Mr.’ type. I don’t even have a last name to put ‘Mr.’ in front of. Just call me Bofur.”

The hobbit was perplexed. “No title at all? Just plain Bofur?”

The dwarf spread his arms in a silly presenting manner. “Aye. I’m just plain Bofur. But to answer your question, I’m out here trying to find some help reading this.” 

He pulled the vexing piece of paper out from under his hat then. “It’s a note from Bilbo, but I can’t tell what it says.” His next move was to set it on the table facing Hamfast and cover all but one lyric. “Can you read this word?”

“Begging your pardon,” his acquaintance said, “but I’m not sure if I can.”

“Why not?”

“I never really learned how to read.”

Bofur straightened up suddenly, looking like he had just knocked over a vase. 

“Did you ever want to?” he asked cautiously.

Hamfast gave a nonchalant shrug. “Can’t say I did. Never had a need for it in my line of work. There’s no words written on flowers.”

This more than put the miner at ease again. “And you did just fine for yourself, didn’t you?”

“Fine and plenty. Anything that has to be written down is too complicated to be bothered with, as my old gaffer used to say.”

“Hear, hear!” Bofur agreed. He made a mental note to ask Bilbo what a “gaffer” was some day.

His eyes widened and drifted back down to the note after that. “...But are you sure you can’t guess what this word is?’

Hamfast leaned over and squinted at the note. “I think it might say ‘and.’”

“‘And’...” Bofur mused as he skimmed the page. He frowned when he was done. “That’s only in there one other time.”

Considering this a favor all the same, he put the note away again and reached for the sack that he had brought along. “Thank you very much, Ham. This is for you.”

At that, he drew a large brown potato from the sack and handed it over to his companion. Grabbing the rest of the sack and tipping his hat, he leapt to his feet and started to hurry away from the table. “Always a pleasure!”

The halfling reached out to him in confusion. “Wait! Where are you going?”

The taller fellow spun back around on his boot heels. “I have to find someone to read the next word. I’m asking one word per hobbit in exchange for these.” He shook the potato sack.

Hamfast was only more confused. “Why not just ask someone to read you the whole note?”

“Because, it’s a _private_ note. It might contain a private message.”

The gardener shrugged again. “Alright, then. Good luck to you.” 

As he watched the dwarf turn and scurry into the crowd, a final nicety sprang to mind that he felt he ought to say.

“And thank you for the potato, Mr. Bofur!”

* * *

It was by the grace of Mahal that Bilbo’s song was short, because Bofur would have run out of time and potatoes before learning the whole thing otherwise. An hour of reciting it to himself and composing a tune for it had followed his success, and once he had felt that he knew the whole thing by heart, he had gotten to work on his next task: replacing Bilbo’s potatoes.

He was quite proud of the plan he had concocted for that. It brought his whole dilemma full circle; after using potatoes to obtain knowledge of a song, he was now using knowledge of more songs to obtain more potatoes. Standing in the middle of the marketplace with his hat upside-down on the ground before him, the worldly musician practiced his craft.

 _What’s your hurry, Heir of Durin,_  
_That you’re in a fury so?_  
_Is it ice upon the water,_  
_Or the rooftops white with snow?_  
_Don’t you worry, we’ll set sail,_  
_Tomorrow morning, all for one,_  
_And be entering that mountain,_  
_By the setting of the sun!_

 _By the setting of the sun,_  
_When this Durin’s Day is done!_  
_We’ll be entering that mountain,_  
_By the setting of the sun!_

The song was one of his own making. It had first come to him on the quest to Erebor, during his company’s celebration at the Master’s house in Laketown on the eve of reaching the Lonely Mountain. The lyrics were terribly ironic in hindsight, especially coming from him, but he was running out of family-friendly material to perform. That wouldn’t have bothered him so much if there had been at least a penny of spare change in his hat by now.

In spite of his waning time, he was glad to put his act on hold when Primula Baggins approached him. Dressed in a flowery skirt with her basket of groceries in hand, the woman looked as chipper as ever as she came to speak with the dwarf. That wasn’t to say she didn’t have a few concerns, though.

“Bofur!” she began brightly. “What are you doing?”

“Good afternoon, Primula!” he answered with an animated bow. “I’m trying my hand at some trading in the market!”

She eyed his overturned hat incredulously. “Trading what, exactly?”

He winked. “Music for coin.”

“Whatever do you need coin for?” It was no secret to anyone that Bilbo was far from destitute.

“Potatoes.” Bofur’s look turned grim for a second. “I need them fast, and I don’t want Bilbo to find out yet.”

By “yet,” he of course meant “ever.”

Primula cast a worried look around them. The middle of town was hardly the place to do things in secret, and peddling for change there wouldn’t likely endear the mountaineer to anyone. She observed Bofur the same way she might observe a misbehaving toddler, not entirely happy with the situation, but not blaming him for it either. Eventually, she picked his hat from the grass and returned it to him.

“Here. If you need them fast, I know a better way to get them.”

Bofur accepted his hat with raised eyebrows. “You do?”

“Of course I do!” She slipped an arm through his as she ushered him away, making it look as if he was the one escorting her. “It’s very simple. All you have to do is say ‘yes’ when a friend offers to purchase them for you.”

He stumbled for one pace. “Oh! I can’t ask you to do that.”

“I know,” she said cleverly. “That’s why I’m offering. It wouldn’t be very gentlemanly to deny an offer from a lady, you know.”

“Well, I certainly won’t debate Shire etiquette with a Shireling,” Bofur politely bantered back.

* * *

Bilbo was cooking in the kitchen once again when his housemate chose to unveil what he had learned that day. While the hobbit stood at the counter that evening, chopping vegetables for a stew, Bofur strolled into the room with his hands held grandly behind his back. The dwarf watched the shorter figure, savoring the moment before his reveal, then unleashed the song in a steady tenor.

_Lazy Lob and Crazy Cob_  
_Are weaving webs to wind me._  
_I’m far more sweet than other meat,_  
_But still they cannot find me!_

_Here I am, naughty little fly;_  
_You are fat and lazy._  
_You cannot catch me, though you try,_  
_In your cobwebs crazy!_

Bofur’s guess was that the lyrics came from memories of battling those overgrown spiders in Mirkwood. That was correct to a point, but it was Bilbo’s vanishing escape from the Sackville-Bagginses a few weeks ago that had provided most of the halfling’s inspiration. Regardless of what it was about, the miner eyed his partner with baited breath while delivering the tune, almost giddy to see what reaction it would garner.

To his confusion, it garnered none at all.

The glee left Bofur’s stare as he watched Bilbo continue his chopping.

“Did you hear me?” he awkwardly inquired after several seconds.

“I did,” was Bilbo’s sour reply. “It was lovely.”

The hobbit picked up his loaded cutting board and loudly dumped its contents into the pot beside him.

“I just wish that half of Hobbiton wasn’t also figuring out the words tonight while eating my potatoes and wondering what Primula Baggins was doing in town with a dwarf instead of her husband.”

Bofur went white as a sheet, suddenly having nothing to say for himself. It had never entered his mind once that afternoon that word of his escapades could find its way to Bilbo from someone other than him. Only then did he remember the important lesson about gossip that his incident with Lobelia had taunt him months ago.

Needless to say, that daylong lapse in memory made for a very uncomfortable night between him and Bilbo. 

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote the lyrics for Bofur’s song “The Setting Of The Sun” myself, but the tune I set them to is that of the Irish battle hymn “The Rising Of The Moon”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0zBlHlnR4Y. 
> 
> The idea could be that the tune Bofur wrote for his song was recycled a few times over the ages for songs about other historical events.
> 
> The song that Bilbo wrote is “Lazy Lob And Crazy Cob” from the book of _The Hobbit_.


	11. Sneaking Suspicions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bofur tries connecting with the local hobbit children while tensions continue to rise between him and Bilbo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for the kudos on my story! Knowing that people are reading and liking it makes writing it all the more enjoyable. :)

The following morning marked the first time in ages that Bofur actively sought solitude. While Bilbo sulked about inside Bag End, the miner sat on the bench outside its front door with no company but his pipe. He had nothing to say to his bitter hobbit anyway, so he figured he might as well occupy his mouth and lungs with a wad of tobacco instead.

He didn’t feel terribly guilty about yesterday’s antics, he decided. It served Bilbo right for pushing him into something that he didn’t want or need to learn, and the halfling had no one to blame but himself for failing to out-stubborn a dwarf. Bofur’s only regret was that Primula had gotten splashed with some of the town’s verbal muck alongside himself. Then again, she knew those townspeople well enough and hadn’t been concerned about their whispering, so maybe it really wasn’t anything worth fretting over.

The bearded fellow snorted in disgust. It made him want a drink just thinking about all of the petty squabbling and gossiping that happened among the Shirefolk. Then again, what sort of behavior could he expect from people who only lived to the age of one hundred and ten?

The idea of a drink steered his thoughts to that wine closet in Bilbo’s pantry. He had been inside of it a few times since coming to the Shire, but only to help his partner retrieve something from a high shelf or to make shorter work of carrying something heavy from it to the kitchen. He had never ventured into that haven of bottles and kegs without permission from its rightful owner, though his aggravations from the last couple of weeks were making that temptation more difficult to resist.

Bofur dwelled on this cheerlessness for a few more minutes until the cloud of pipe smoke cleared from his face. That was when he spied a little mop of brown curls peaking up at him over the fence in front of the garden. Another curious hobbit child had come for a glimpse of the town’s dwarf.

Once again, the mountain-dweller was happy to oblige. 

“Good morning,” he said with a friendly smile.

The fauntling, a boy no older than five, didn’t answer. He lowered his head somewhat bashfully, though his eyes only moved higher. It wasn’t hard to guess what he was looking at.

Bofur reached up to fiddle with his headgear. “Oh! Noticed my hat, did you? That’s all it is, is a hat. My head isn’t shaped this way. See?”

He removed the accessory to demonstrate. His younger spectator flinched slightly, but stayed put. That encouraged Bofur to take things a step further, so to speak.

“That’s sort of what these are too.” He extended his legs from the bench to show off his boots. “Hats for my feet.”

The boy lifted his chin over the fence again for a better view.

“I have to wear them, you see,” Bofur went on. “Dwarf feet aren’t built like hobbit feet, so we have to protect them. Here.”

He bent down and untied the laces of one boot just like last time. Also like last time, he paused before removing it, but for a much different reason. He held up a hand and sent the boy a disclaiming look.

“This is just a foot hat, remember? Not my real foot.”

The fauntling actually nodded, to Bofur’s delight. The miner grabbed his boot by the heel then and carefully slid it off. He gave a similar warning for the sock underneath it, then he pulled that off too. 

His viewer let out a squeal of gleeful repulsion.

“What?” the dwarf asked, close to laughing. “That’s what my foot looks like! I was born this way!”

“No hair!” the boy exclaimed.

Bofur gazed down at his bald toes with sudden whimsy. “Oh. You don’t know the story?”

The lad shook his head.

“Well,” the elder explained, “a long, long time ago, it used to be that dwarves did have hair on their feet. Really thick, full, long hair too, just like the hair on our heads. Over the years though, that thick, full, long foot hair got tired of being stuffed in smelly old foot hats all the time, never getting any fresh air...”

He sat up and pointed to his beard and mustache. “...So it traveled north!”

The punch line earned a hearty laugh. The youngster’s giddiness brought Bofur a livelier smile as well. After another minute or so of chitchat, something compelled the boy to move along, and he scampered off down the road with a farewell wave.

Later that day, the dwarf took the smallest log he could find from the pile by Bilbo’s fireplace and whittled a spinning top from one end of it, just in case the same boy ever visited Bag End again. 

It wasn’t as fancy as any of the tops at his toy stand back in Dale. Those had been crafted by his cousin Bifur, the real toymaker in the family. Most of the things that sold from their inventory were of the older dwarf’s making, but Bofur liked to think that his own skills were improving since he no longer had to spend his days toiling in the mines for a steadier living.

He _had_ been talented enough, however, to carve his own clarinet on his fortieth birthday. Bifur had still been mild-mannered and intact back then, decades away from that infamous axe wound in his head, and had taken him hiking through the woods and fields at the foot of the Blue Mountains that day. They had each obtained a walking stick during their travels, and after they had returned home, they had spent the rest of the evening carving those sticks into matching musical instruments. 

Bifur had always insisted that Bofur was the better player of the two of them. Bofur had certainly never objected to that claim, but he couldn’t remember his cousin’s playing vividly enough to really compare it now. Bifur hadn’t made a note with his clarinet after receiving his head wound, and by the time he had shed that accursed axe from his skull and regained some of his bearings, he had fallen so out of practice that there was truly no question of who played better.

These memories of family, good and bad, had given Bofur the energy to finish making the top in record time. Bilbo never even saw it.

When the brown-haired boy did revisit Bag End the next morning, the dwarf reached over the fence, set the toy in his little palm, and watched him light up with excitement as he tested it on the ground. The child thanked Bofur for the gift, already showing good hobbit manners, and started to scamper away again. That was when the craftsman thought to take one minor precaution.

“Oh! One more thing, lad,” he said quickly. 

When the fauntling returned to the fence, Bofur crouched with care on the other side of it to see him at eye-level.

“Mr. Bilbo doesn’t need to know that I gave you that top,” he said in a hushed voice. “Alright? So don’t feel like you have to mention it to him if you ever see him.”

The boy seemed to understand this request. He agreed to keep his new knickknack a secret, then he took off with it again. After that, knowing a thing or two about children, Bofur commandeered the smallest log from Bilbo’s woodpile again and turned the rest of it into a whole collection of tops.

He was ready for the dozen or so other youngsters who “coincidentally” came trickling past Bag End in the days that followed. Each one would show up late in the morning to watch the dwarf smoke in the garden between breakfasts, and he would reward each of their curiosities with one of his tiny wooden prizes. Every time it happened, Bilbo would be too busy in the kitchen to see it, and Bofur would advise every child to keep their new toy a secret from his housemate.

His intention behind this wasn’t as nefarious as it might have seemed. His hope in being kind to the local little ones, besides to please them, was that they might pass along word of that kindness to other locals and smooth over some of the rough spots he had created in the marketplace. Since Bilbo would likely worry himself right into a coma over such dealings, Bofur decided it was best to keep him out of the loop in the meantime.

And even if Bilbo did find out, the hobbit was certainly no one to disapprove of making decisions for another’s so-called benefit—or of keeping secrets, for that matter.

* * *

The sourness over Bofur’s day in town had taken a week to fully wear off. Bilbo and the dwarf had never officially reconciled over it, as still neither of them was willing to admit he had been in the wrong, but they had made an unspoken agreement not to throw any more matches into that fire. While Bofur stayed in the vicinity of Bag End, Bilbo made that stay more tolerable by ceasing his reading and writing lessons.

Let the headstrong miner have his way for now. It wouldn’t be very long before intrigue would get the best of Bofur and steer him back to his tutor for another try. Mr. Baggins was as confident of that as he was patient for it. Until that victory came around, the halfling was content to enjoy and flaunt his own reading skills by keeping his nose in his books when he had nothing else to do.

Bilbo found himself so engrossed in his reading one afternoon that he didn’t even care when Bofur wandered out of the den and left him with no one to show off to. The book was one of his mother’s, an exciting tale about knights and monsters and magic that he had spent many bedtimes listening to in his youth. That nostalgia, mixed with the feeling of sitting quietly in his armchair by the fireplace, brought a sense of peace to the hobbit that he hadn’t been blessed with since the days before his own adventure. He was so willing to believe in that tale about noble, incorruptible heroes and happy endings again that he momentarily fooled himself into thinking he had never run out his door after Gandalf the Grey and Thorin Oakenshield all those years ago.

That bliss ended when an urge to touch his ring suddenly swelled in him. Eyes still glued to the page, Bilbo let one hand venture down into his pocket to feel for the trinket. A few seconds later, his casual search turned into an anxious hunt and his eyes were staring into the empty air with a glaze of alarm.

His pocket was empty.

Just like that, the book was closed and forgotten on his lap. He shoved a hand into his other pocket then, and when he found that empty as well, he sprang to his feet to pull out the armchair’s seat cushion. His beloved book fell right to the floor when he did that.

Minutes of frantically scouring and re-scouring his armchair also turned up no results. Bilbo was a jittery, mumbling mess by then. His ring was gone! It was lost! Where was it?

A stroke of memory cut through his panic right then. He had gotten a stain on his waistcoat at lunch and changed out of it in a hurry a few hours ago. His ring must have still been in one of the pockets. It must have been in the bedroom laundry basket!

The hobbit took off in pursuit of this lead, tearing from the den to the hallway and through the study to his and Bofur’s room. He would have flown straight to that basket the instant he was through the doorway, but instead he stopped dead and gaping in his tracks. Someone had beaten him to his destination.

There was Bofur, stooped low over the basket and rummaging through it intently. 

“What are you doing?” Bilbo loudly demanded.

Bofur straightened up with a start, clutching a load of dirty clothes to his chest. The bright yellow hue of the coveted waistcoat shined like gold across the bedroom.

“I couldn’t find one of my shirts,” the dwarf said innocently, unaware of what he held. “I was looking to see if I already wore it this week.”

“That is _my_ laundry basket and _my_ laundry that you’re poking through!” Bilbo berated. He stormed forward as he spoke and then snatched away the load with a ferocity that startled Bofur even more. 

The taller fellow quickly donned a distasteful glare of his own. “What’s gotten into you?”

“You getting into my things! That’s what’s gotten into me!” the recoiling halfling hissed. “First my vegetables, now my vestments. Is there anything else of mine you’d like to burrow into without my consent?”

“Hey, hey,” Bofur pointed out hotly, “you’re the one who tried to write me into your will out of the blue. I said no to that because I _don’t_ want your things. I’m not your cousin Otho.”

Bilbo’s only response to that was to shrink away with a nasty sound. He turned away at that, still clutching his dirty laundry, and snaked a hand into the pocket of his yellow waistcoat. Bofur’s voice trailed him angrily through the study and down the hallway. 

“You know what?” the dwarf shouted from the bedroom. “Fine! If you don’t want me touching your laundry, I won’t put mine in the basket with it anymore! I’ll do you the courtesy of throwing mine all over the house from now on! Or better yet, maybe I’ll quit wearing clothes altogether! Lobelia should like that!”

Bilbo fished his ring from the waistcoat just as he reached the den, then without breaking stride, he marched out the front door to wash his load.

* * *

Even with his magic token safely accounted for, the hobbit couldn’t rest. His suspicion towards Bofur remained firmly intact, and after his mocking words to his housemate that afternoon, he couldn’t shake the feeling like he had issued the bearded troublemaker another challenge. When the two of them went to bed that night, still in the same room, Bilbo lay with his back to the other and only pretended to sleep.

Sure enough, around midnight, he felt the mattress shift and heard footsteps move around the bed as Bofur got up to leave the room. Rather than inquiring, the halfling kept up his act and waited until those footsteps proceeded into the hallway. His blue eyes opened then, and one of his hands did the same to reveal that it held his ring. With no time to lose, he slipped it onto his finger and scurried from the room unseen.

Sneaking after Bofur wasn’t difficult to do. Invisibility aside, the hobbit was so quick and light on his feet compared to the lumbering dwarf that he never gave away the slightest hint that he was there. He followed his partner around the corner into Bag End’s west hall, through the atrium, and into the pantry.

It was there that Bofur came to a stop, staring down with the closed door of the wine closet.

Bilbo came to his own stop a few paces to the other’s left and glared. He wasn’t the least bit surprised by what seemed to be unfolding, but having his suspicions confirmed was agitating nonetheless. The smaller figure watched the larger bitterly, waiting to catch Bofur red-handed.

Those hands slowly balled into fists at the miner’s sides as he stood in place. Thunderous seconds ticked by, then at last, the dwarf reached forward. He took hold of the closet’s doorknob, turned it, and pulled the door open a crack.

Then he let go of it.

Bilbo blinked away his cagy expression, immediately confused. He turned and looked up at Bofur as if he expected his housemate to explain the strange gesture to him. The only explanation he received was the sight of the other glancing curtly towards their bedroom before turning to walk away. The hobbit watched him in revulsion, then glowered back at the partially opened door.

The intention was obvious: give the paranoid halfling one more thing to needlessly fret about.

Bilbo turned again to leer at Bofur’s back. His own snide inner prankster sparked to life at that instant, and the former burglar opened the wine closet’s door a little farther. He slammed it shut with all of his might just before the dwarf exited the pantry.

It was a wonder Bofur didn’t put his head through the ceiling when he jumped and spun around. He stared at the now shut closet with bulging eyes, too shocked to be scared or even puzzled. 

Bilbo Baggins glared straight back at him, declaring himself the victor that night, and took that frozen stupor as the perfect opportunity to hurry back to bed.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to the Tolkien Gateway website, an early draft of _The Hobbit_ said that Bifur and Bofur had carved their clarinets from their walking sticks, so I decided to pay homage to that.
> 
> And also, Sassy Bilbo strikes again!


	12. What Makes a Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bilbo and Bofur have their worst argument yet and each do something that they deeply regret.

Three mornings after his loud surprise, Bofur was woken with another. 

The ear-splitting clash that erupted over his head made him leap up flailing and tumble out of bed, still wearing his long johns. He gawked up from the floor to find Bilbo looming over him with a frying pan in one hand and a skillet in the other. The hobbit was glaring down with a face that could frighten a goblin.

Bilbo hadn’t just woken his housemate. Tiny flecks of scrambled egg from the kitchenware lay all over Bofur and the area surrounding him. The dwarf picked one piece off of his shoulder and held it up.

“What’s this?” he asked sarcastically. “Breakfast in bed?”

“I’m not making breakfast for you anymore,” Bilbo seethed. “If you want breakfast, you can make it yourself, just like you make all of the trouble that finds its way into this house.”

Bofur scrunched his face. “What?”

“Esmerelda Brambleburr from down the road was just here,” the halfling elaborated. “She told me that her daughter Estella and several other children were recently given little favors by a certain dwarf, who apparently told all of them to keep it a secret. Now everyone in town is up in arms about Mad Baggins and his bearded accomplice who are trying to lure children into Bag End for who knows what foul purpose!”

Bofur braced himself against the bed, equally angry now. “That’s an outrage!”

“Is it true? Tell me right this instant what you’ve done!”

The dwarf squared his jaw and stood up. “Aye, I gave the lads and lasses ‘little favors.’ They were toys that I carved. I handed them over, but I never laid a hand on any of those children! And I didn’t tell them to keep it a secret from _everyone_ , just—” 

Bofur cut himself off just then and looked away sullenly. A dangerous glint flashed in Bilbo’s eyes.

“Just what?” the hobbit prompted.

“Just from you,” the other spit out.

The glint left Bilbo’s eyes for a moment. The hobbit glanced away in shock a few times, then he stepped back from Bofur and let his frying pan and skillet clang onto the floor. He lowered his head with his hands on his hips for a few beats.

“How could you do this to me?” he asked quietly.

“No, no, no,” Bofur retaliated, stepping forward, “I didn’t do this _to_ you. I did this _because of_ you. Because you have become ridiculously paranoid, Bilbo.”

“Ridi—” the smaller figure stammered. He leaned closer as he leered up at Bofur. “Is it ridiculous? You’ve seen what these people are like. Am I completely unfounded to be worried about this nosy, plundering pack of conspirators?”

“That’s why you wanted me in your will, wasn’t it?” the dwarf pressed on. “To keep your stuff out of their hands. That’s also why you wanted me to learn how to read. Because stupid, illiterate, rock-breaker Bofur isn’t good enough for the once-respectable Mr. Baggins. And then on top of that, you make me hide around here and lie about our relationship because you don’t want anyone judging _you_! Well I’m not gonna stand here anymore and be told that I can’t reach out to these people.”

“You _can’t_ reach out,” Bilbo fired back. “Not to _these_ people.” He pointed wildly towards the house’s front door. “This is what they do to people like us who are different from them. They turn on us!”

“Then why are you here with them? There’s a whole mountain full of dwarves on the other side of Middle Earth who would welcome you back like a hero right now.”

The hobbit cooled and turned away slightly. “I’m not a hero.”

“Then like a friend!” Bofur was on the brink of desperation. “Why would you deny yourself that to be treated like an outcast over here? I know that what happened with Thorin and Fíli and Kíli was hard for you, but it was hard for all of us too. We understand, Bilbo. We can help if you’d just let us. Stop sitting around here missing the friends you’ve lost and come back to the ones you still have left!”

“You said yourself that we belonged in different places,” the other sneered. “That something between us wouldn’t work out because of that!”

“Well maybe things have changed since then. _You_ certainly have. You said so yourself.”

Bilbo was flabbergasted. “I am a Baggins of Bag End!”

“And what does that mean? That you’re supposed to sneak around the house under your own windows and hiss at people for touching your laundry? You know, the more I hear about this last name business, the less I like it. It just sounds like a way of labeling people around here to make them act a certain way. That’s why they’ve turned on you. You don’t match your label anymore, Mr. Baggins!” 

The glint came back to the hobbit’s eyes as he put a hand over his pocket.

Bofur wasn’t finished ranting. “And as for this Bag End that you’re a Baggins of, it might be the same house you were missing on our quest all those years ago, but I don’t think it’s been your home for a long time now. Have you ever considered that? Maybe you don’t belong here anymore!”

Bilbo’s reaction was so abrupt that even he wasn’t ready for it. His anger flared into rage at the cutting words, and the hobbit lashed out automatically. He struck his hand hard across Bofur’s left cheek. 

It was only after the sound of that sickening clap that Bilbo realized what he had done. Horror replaced all of his rage, and he stood frozen with wide eyes. He could only watch as his dear one stumbled back and sat down heavily at the foot of their bed. 

Bofur was more surprised than hurt, but his surprise was so great that it looked like pain. He sat in a daze for several seconds before he registered what had happened, as well as what he had said to prompt it. He had just thrown almost the same words at Bilbo that his hobbit had accidentally hurt him with more than a decade ago.

The dwarf revived in a fit of remorse. “I _completely_ deserved that.”

Bilbo staggered back with a hand over his mouth.

“No,” he whimpered. “No you didn’t.”

Bofur suddenly stilled when he noticed the other’s distress.

“Oh, Bilbo,” he said gently. He stood up and reached for the hobbit. “Bilbo, it’s alright.”

“No! Stay away from me!”

“Bilbo, I won’t hurt you.”

“I know you won’t,” the halfling choked out with misty eyes, “but please stay away!”

He couldn’t stay in this room any longer. He had to get away. He had to leave before he hurt Bofur again!

Bilbo gazed through his tears at the other’s eyes, once joyful eyes that were now filled with sadness, then he turned and tore off into the study.

Bofur immediately gave chase. He was only a few paces behind the hobbit, and he called after him every step of the way. He had very nearly caught up to Bilbo when the smaller runner reached the study's other doorway and darted out through it. The dwarf did the same a breath later, but when he came into the hallway, he saw no trace of his heartbroken partner anywhere.

It was as if Bilbo had vanished into thin air.

* * *

The halfling’s run took him all the way across Hobbiton. He wore his ring the entire time, shrouding himself from everyone he happened onto, and this only added to the turmoil as he stumbled over their fences and carts and scared up their animals. His unknown presence also made him privy to some of their conversation in passing, and he heard more than a few of the mutterings about him while he fled.

Eventually he came to Bywater Pool, the pond at the corner where the Water and the Norbourn Rivers met southeast of Bag End. There he finally removed his ring and collapsed at the foot of the bank by pool’s edge, where he sat for a very long time. Bilbo spent those countless hours clutching his head in shame and trying to figure out what had become of him.

He thought more than once of Gollum, the creature in the Misty Mountains who had previously owned his ring. The more he thought of that monstrous, slimy little sneak, the more his own recent behavior reminded him of the creature. He spent a long stretch of his solitude trembling and rocking himself when it dawned on him that he had become the same miserable wretch as Gollum, perhaps thanks to his ring. He was a miserable wretch who had been living a miserable, wretched life ever since he had returned to the Shire.

It was no more than the life he deserved after his failure at Erebor, and especially no more than he deserved after this morning.

Bilbo went still again after reaching that dismal conclusion. That was how he remained until very late in the afternoon, when the sky was changing from blue to yellow for the approaching sunset. The only reason he moved at that time was because another hobbit finally discovered him.

“Mr. Bilbo?”

He came out of his shock with a jump and looked back over his shoulder. Even then, he tried to scrape together some propriety. “Hamfast.”

The sandy-haired gardener watched him from the top of the bank, then cautiously made his way down. “What’s the matter? What are you doing down there?”

Bilbo faced forward again and tried to sound as calm as possible. “Oh, I suppose I’ve heard the talk of the town.”

“It’s only talk.” Hamfast assured as he took his own seat by the pool. “It won’t last. I know that you and Mr. Bofur don’t mean any harm.”

Bilbo gave a quiet nod, paused, then asked, “What do you think of Bofur?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think,” Hamfast said. Seeing the other hobbit’s disappointment, he added, “...But for what it’s worth, any friend of yours is a friend of mine.”

“Why ever would you say that?” Bilbo asked, hanging his head to stare into the water.

The gardener never wavered. “Because you’re a decent fellow.”

The compliment didn’t convince Mr. Baggins, but he was gracious enough to conceal his doubt. He awkwardly forced a smile as he turned to Hamfast. “Well...thank you, but I do believe I’ve been a rather _childish_ fellow today by coming here.”

He sniffed and rubbed his nose, trying to make it seem like his allergies were acting up, then both hobbits climbed to their feet. 

“I think I ought to go home now,” Bilbo decided as he gave a final look out over the pool. Its waters were shimmering with the golden light from the sky. “The sun is beginning to set anyway.”

* * *

It was dark by the time the wayward halfling returned to Bag End. His journey back from the Bywater Pool had been much longer than his journey to it; he hadn’t wanted to put on his ring again, even after he and Hamfast had gone their separate ways, and that had forced him to take the long way home through town instead of cutting across other people’s yards again. Lucky for him, the late hour left very few townsfolk outside for him to encounter along his way. His only regret for the darkness was that it told him he had left Bofur alone after their fight for almost an entire day.

That knowledge had given Bilbo haste right until he had arrived at the front door of his hobbit hole. The lights shining out through the windows told him that Bofur hadn’t gone to bed, and the thought that the poor dwarf had been waiting up for him with no inkling of when he might return added another dose to his guilt. His partner would no doubt have a few more words for him after such a long absence. 

The only words he had ready in exchange were apologies, but it was anyone’s guess whether or not Bofur would accept them. The hobbit certainly had no right to expect forgiveness after everything he had inflicted on the other since October, let alone after what he had inflicted that morning. It was with that understanding that Bilbo nervously creaked open his front door and humbly stepped inside.

“Bofur?” he called in a soft voice.

There was no answer. He called louder then with the same result. The halfling was about to venture farther into the house when he glanced over at the coat rack by the door and stopped.

Bofur’s coat and scarf were both missing from the rack.

Bilbo did venture farther into the house then, but much quicker than he had meant to before. He dashed through the east hall and into the den, the room where Bofur usually sat to play his clarinet or to smoke. To his fright, the dwarf’s musical instrument was gone from its place on the coffee table and his pipe was gone from its place on the end table by his favorite seat.

The hobbit’s next destination was the study, where Bofur had left his folder and all of his papers from Erebor. He skidded to a halt in that room and saw that none of the miner’s paperwork was scattered on the floor by the desk where it had been for the past two months. It was then that the shaky, dread-filled Bilbo turned his sights to the door that led into their bedroom.

He burst through that door a moment later to receive the worst scare of all. Bofur’s bag and all of his belongings that once lied comfortably around the room were nowhere to be seen, and neither was the dwarf. The bedroom that Mr. Baggins stood in, the bedroom where so much anger, blame, and hurt had transpired between him and his love that morning, looked as if it had never contained anyone but himself.

“Bofur!” he cried out.

Bilbo flew from the room for the second time that day. He ran to every corner of the house screaming for the other, and no matter how loudly or how frantically he called, no response was heard but his own echo. All the while, his last order for Bofur to stay away from him reverberated through his head, along with every terrible thought of what he had to face now.

Bofur was gone. He had packed all of his things and slipped away without saying good-bye, just like the hobbit had tried to do to him ten years ago. When had he left? How far could he be by now? Where was he going? He must be headed back to Erebor, but Bilbo couldn’t bear the thought of going there to see him now after what had been done. And if he couldn’t follow Bofur to Erebor, then he was condemned to the same lonely, unhappy life that he deserved in the Shire.

He was on the verge of breaking down when he flung his front door open again and ran outside once more. His voice was close to breaking as well, but he continued to shout anyway. He went yelling through his garden and down the path to the front gate, ready to charge all the way back to Bywater and beyond if he had to. 

That was when someone finally heard him. Bilbo nearly tripped at the sound of someone else hurrying around from the other side of his hill. He turned to face the other person, then his next call stuck in his throat.

Bofur stopped short in front of the garden, clutching the halfling’s weeding bucket.

Neither of them moved right away. After all of his panicked searching, Bilbo couldn’t believe that he had found Bofur, and the miner clearly couldn’t believe that he was face to face with his missing housemate either. Once the first moment of shock passed, the hobbit came to see that the dwarf’s eyes were swollen and red around their edges.

Bofur had been crying recently.

Another punch of guilt in his chest brought Bilbo’s hands to his mouth. Bofur stepped towards him at last, bringing those sad eyes with him. 

“I’m sorry, Bilbo,” he said in a strangled whisper.

The hobbit did break down then. He tried to apologize in turn as he came forward, but the words only came out as a heart-wrenching whimper. It took everything for Bilbo to run to his beloved before his quivering legs gave out beneath him. He threw his arms around Bofur with a sob just before falling, then the dwarf’s strong arms cast aside the bucket and engulfed him as they sank to their knees together. 

His apology didn’t end there. Bilbo twisted himself around in that protective hold and proceeded to shower Bofur’s left cheek with kisses and tears until his grief was too much. He could only press his forehead to that cheek then and sob into his partner’s neck as he clung to him tighter.

He was so lost in his despair that he didn’t even notice when Bofur gathered him up and quickly carried him back into Bag End.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was originally going to have the last scene at the beginning of the next chapter. It seemed to work better here though, so Chapter 13 might be a shorter chapter than usual. Or maybe it won't. It all depends on what happens during the writing. :)
> 
> Just know that Chapter 13 might contain a lot of feels.


	13. The Pain of Being Close

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While reconciling, Bilbo opens up to Bofur about Erebor and they discuss how to move forward.

Bofur had spent his lonely day in Bag End cleaning, it turned out. That was why his belongings had no longer been strewn about the house at the time of Bilbo’s return. The dwarf had even felt guilty enough to try his hand at weeding the garden, despite it being dark and chilly outside by then. That was why his coat and scarf had been missing from the coat rack. He had been emptying the first bucket of weeds behind the hill when the hobbit had boisterously run out the door again, and he had hurried to meet the other at the first sound of his name being cried.

It took some time to calm Bilbo after carrying him back inside. Bofur tried to set him down in his favorite armchair in the den, but nothing could persuade the shaken halfling to let go of him. The miner instead sat on the floor in front of the chair with his partner cradled in his lap, and he swore up and down that he had never meant to leave and comforted Bilbo until the worst was over.

The couple found themselves in that same spot an hour later, still curled together. The hobbit was sitting up straight in Bofur’s lap and holding the dwarf’s head to his chest. While one hand kept that left cheek pressed softly into his shirt, the other clung loosely to his lover’s long courting braid. Bilbo rested his own cheek in Bofur’s hair, blue eyes full of woe.

“I’ve never seen you cry before,” he murmured at last.

Bofur squeezed his arms a little tighter around the other’s waist. “It wasn’t the worst I’ve ever gotten. Bifur would tell you I screamed like a banshee when I was a baby. He _can_ tell you now since he’s over speaking Khuzdul, although Bombur said he slipped back into it one day a few years ago.”

Bilbo moved his head slightly. “ _Bombur_ said?”

The dwarf smiled and glanced up. “He’s not a mute, my brother. He just doesn’t care to talk so much. I guess it’s easy to be the less talkative one next to me.”

He grew somber again. “You want to know the worst I’ve ever gotten?” 

Bilbo said nothing. Sensing his curiosity anyway, Bofur began the tale.

“It was when Bifur first came home with his axe wound. We were living in the Blue Mountains at the time. Bifur had gone off to that battle for Moria, and Balin and the other few dwarves who survived it brought him back with that nasty piece of metal in his head. They said he didn’t get it in combat. An orc straggler ambushed him the night after the fighting and ran off. 

“He was still unconscious when they brought him home, and no one knew if he’d wake again. I believed he would, so I pulled a chair right up to his bed and sat there waiting for him. I was gonna give him a big smile when he came around, and then say something that I thought was funny at the time. That was what I _planned_ to do, but after a week of watching and waiting and insisting to the rest of the family that he was gonna wake up...it finally hit me that he really might not.” 

Bofur gave a weak shrug. “I didn’t take that well. My mother had to drag me out of his room when she heard all my racket. Can you imagine a ninety-two-year-old having to be dragged away in tears by his mother?” 

He almost pushed out a laugh at the thought, then his face softened again. 

“And wouldn’t you know it, Bifur woke up later that same day. I gave him a smile alright, but I had to give it to him with those awful, red, watery eyes of mine, and I could only hope that...in his condition...he couldn’t figure out that I was upset because of him.”

His voice fell almost to a whisper. “That’s the trouble with the people closest to you. They can hurt you the most, even when they don’t mean to.”

Bilbo had been stewing in thought throughout the story. He squirmed when it was his turn to speak. 

“Bofur? I have a confession to make. That day when I came across you on the path in Buckland...I was leaving the Shire to try and return to Erebor. I didn’t know if I could really do it. I just wanted to see how far I could go.”

“I had a feeling,” the other said calmly. He pulled away then and looked up. “Bilbo, I was wrong to say all of those terrible things this morning, about you and your home.”

“No you weren’t,” the hobbit replied, keeping his head down in a sudden fit. “I needed to be told off like that. It served me right as much as all the other miseries I’ve been through since I came back from my ‘adventure’—”

“Hey,” Bofur said in a firmer tone. He lifted Bilbo’s chin with care. “Look at me.”

The halfling reluctantly did so, not wanting to pull himself away from those strong fingers. The dwarf waited until their eyes met, then he spoke again.

“You deserve to be happy.”

A wounded look slowly came over Bilbo.

“You do,” Bofur punctuated more softly. 

The words stung the hobbit. His face crumpled and his eyes welled with tears all over again, then he stroked his partner’s left cheek for what must have been the hundredth time that night. Bofur gingerly pulled his hand away and placed a kiss on those trembling little fingers. 

“Thorin’s death wasn’t your fault,” he persisted. “You didn’t betray him, and you didn’t do anything to Fíli or Kíli either.”

“But I failed them...”

“No, no,” Bofur cooed. “You didn’t fail them. That task wasn’t yours to fail or succeed at. None of that business with the battle was. You were _innocent_.” 

The hobbit clenched his eyes shut and clamped his other hand over his mouth, bracing himself for the next words.

“What matters is that you tried, Bilbo. You tried to protect all of us when you didn’t have to, but it was out of your control.”

Bilbo sensed that the other was speaking mainly about the dealings with the Arkenstone. It occurred to him then that Bofur might not know everything that happened that fateful day. He brought his hand higher to shield his eyes, then began telling the rest of that story. 

“After the battle started,” he wrenched out, “I learned that Azog was going to attack Thorin and the others at Ravenhill...so I went to warn them. I made it there unseen...and I told Thorin everything...but then...”

His throat grew too tight to speak for a moment. Sensing that something horrible was about to come, Bofur pulled the hobbit closer to secure him against one shoulder.

“Let it out, let it out,” he guided.

Bilbo did. He told the dwarf everything, about Fili’s death at the hands of Azog, about the pack of orcs that had swarmed on the rest of their stunned party, about how he must have lost consciousness and awoken too late to help anyone, and about his last words with the dying Thorin Oakenshield. He sobbed and wept terribly through most of the account, so much so that he thought his listener couldn’t possibly comprehend what he said, and he was reduced to another quivering, whimpering mess after he finished. 

Bofur hid his own tears at this revelation and consoled the hobbit, rubbing his back and rocking him while whispering how brave Bilbo was for telling the story. He hated himself for putting his dear one in so much anguish again tonight, but cleaning a wound usually did make it sting, and there was no way for ten years’ worth of suppressed pain to come out sounding pretty. He waited until the smaller figure was relaxed once more to share his thoughts.

“They knew that you tried, Bilbo. They knew that you risked your life for the sake of theirs, and Thorin wanted you to go home as a reward for that. He wanted you to live happily in the place where you were most likely to because that was what you deserved.”

The other seemed to breathe just a little easier at that, so Bofur went on with a more peaceful thought.

“They’re not in pain anymore. When we dwarves leave this world, we go to the halls of our maker Mahal, and do you know what we do there?”

Bilbo shook his head.

“We have a feast,” Bofur explained with quiet cheer. “We eat, drink, sing, and make merry, just like our company did in this house the night you first met us. Fíli and Kíli are probably throwing their supper around and dueling with their silverware right now while Thorin’s in the middle trying not to laugh.”

The hobbit couldn’t help but let out a faint laugh of his own at that image. He leaned back from Bofur’s shoulder to face his love again. His little face was still flushed with damp cheeks, but he was working his way towards a smile.

“That’s really what happens to dwarves when they...leave this world?” he asked hoarsely.

Bofur reached out to wipe away some of that dampness. “Cross my heart. They’re all happy now, and they would want the same for a loyal friend like you. Let yourself be happy again for them.”

“I just wish I could be happy _with_ them, I suppose.”

“You will be someday. All of us will be.”

“But how would _I_ get a seat at that table?” Some playfulness had found its way back into Bilbo’s voice. “I’m not a dwarf, after all.”

“You’re part of the family,” Bofur said with a light tug at his partner’s courting braid. “I think Mahal would make an exception for you. If not, then tell him I sent you.”

The hobbit gave another weak laugh, then his pain suddenly returned. He turned his face away and sagged to one side. “I still don’t think I can face that mountain again in the meantime.”

“Then we’ll stay here.”

Bilbo stopped and stared. “You would still do that for me? After everything I’ve put you through here?”

“You spent months as the lone hobbit in a group of smelly, grumpy dwarves wandering the wilderness,” Bofur reminded. He arched his bushy eyebrows with a smile. “I can stand to be the lone dwarf in a cozy hole in the ground.”

Bilbo held his gaze with meaning before hanging his own head. “You were right about the other Shirefolk, though. Hardly anyone here seems to want me around.”

“Most of our company didn’t want you around either—at first. You just have to show these Shirefolk that you’re not going anywhere, and they’ll accept you. And if they don’t, then the best way to get even with someone who doesn’t like having you around is to never leave.” Bofur winked. “Take it from a dwarf.”

That finally brought out Bilbo’s smile as well. “Well _I_ like having you around.”

Bofur beamed back warmly. “That’s an even better reason to never leave.”

The pair paused, savoring each other’s delight, then the hobbit brought his forehead down to rest it tenderly against his dwarf’s.

* * *

They spent most of the night sitting in solace on the floor. All of that day’s raw emotions had made the two weary, and they dozed on and off in front of Bilbo’s armchair until only a few hours before sunrise. They finally rose to their feet at that time and left the den to fall asleep beside each other in their more comfortable bed.

Bilbo was somewhat reticent the next morning. That was understandable in light of the many traumas he had relived the night before, yet it was clear that he was also in better spirits than he had been for a while. He smiled as he showed Bofur how to help him make their breakfasts, and when the miner proved to be just as clueless at cooking as he had been at gardening, the halfling responded with pleasant patience.

Bofur saw to it that those spirits grew brighter and higher over the course of the day. He always had a joke ready for the times when Bilbo seemed to need one, as well as a little kiss or some other affectionate gesture for when the joke wasn’t enough. He even went so far as to improvise a song about laundry later that afternoon, when they were carrying a load from the bedroom together and Bilbo’s smile looked too put on. The song was more lame than charming, but it earned a genuine laugh.

The hobbit was back to his old witty self by the evening. There were also a few glimpses of something else in him that Bofur pretended not to see throughout dinner and supper. The dwarf couldn’t pretend anymore when they went to bed that night and Bilbo started nuzzling his cheek. The polite thing to do at that point was to nuzzle him back.

Their nuzzling soon turned to kissing, and it wasn’t long before they pulled each other closer to begin making love. When they did, Bilbo took Bofur’s head in his hands, gazed up with adoring eyes, and invited his partner to “take” him at last.

“It might hurt,” the dwarf warned him nervously after the initial shock. “Bilbo, I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Bofur,” the smaller figure bid his attention. “You won’t hurt me. You’re going to be the sweetest, gentlest, most attentive lover that a hobbit could ask for, because you always are, and I’m going to tell you if you start to get carried away, because I always do.”

They shared a knowing smile, then he finished. 

“Trust me.”

Bofur did, and after some preparation, he accepted Bilbo’s invitation sweetly, gently, attentively, and very gladly.

It was the most wonderful way they had ever made amends.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always imagined Bifur getting his axe wound at the battle of Azanulbizar since he’s in that scene in _An Unexpected Journey_ , but I don’t think he had it in the shots showing the aftermath of the battle, so I just had him get it from an orc straggler later that night. I think it’s a lot more unfair that way, which would make it harder for his family to accept.
> 
> Just remember for later that Bofur has sore feelings about the whole idea of taking back Moria.


	14. The Strengthening Years

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bilbo and Bofur make a more comfortable life for themselves in the Shire as several years go by.

Neither of them did leave the Shire after that night, at least not for another nineteen years. 

Just as Hamfast had predicted, the talk of Bag End’s child-stealing duo went away almost as quickly as it came. Even so, Bilbo and Bofur were careful to mind their own business for a little while after that, staying around the house with each other’s company while Mr. Baggins found his feet again. Many days of serenely tending to their home and evenings of smoking on the bench in the garden were shared between them, as were quite a few late nights of composing and playing songs by the fireplace. 

It was very much like their first week together in Bag End, and that peaceful solitude was just what the pair needed to strengthen their bonds again. During that time, Bofur began calling Bilbo his Acorn, as the hobbit had taken a shine to his oak tree after their reconciliation and was himself a small but strong creature that simply needed a bit of nurturing. In turn, Bilbo came to christen the other as his _Abanul_ , the Khuzdul word for “stone.” He found it fitting since the miner was stubborn, strong, and a sturdy foundation that could be relied on for support. It was a pet name that Bofur was proud to answer to.

Whether it was because he wanted to appease Bilbo or because he finally wanted it for himself, the dwarf did eventually ask to resume his reading and writing lessons. His hobbit was much more patient the second time around, admitting that such things probably were harder to learn later in life, and the pair came to find their sessions rather agreeable before long. The miner was composing his own songs on paper by the fireplace within a year.

That wasn’t the only change that he made. Around that same time, Bofur stopped wearing his boots since he grew tired of being scolded for tracking dirt through the house with them, and also because the children in town remained very befuddled by them. He started wearing his trousers shorter like Bilbo’s as well because it was so much warmer in Hobbiton than it ever was in the mountains. Pretty soon, Bilbo was commissioning more Shire-suited clothing for his housemate to wear. The local tailors, at least, were willing to be friendly to Mad Baggins when his coin purse was out. 

Despite his new wardrobe, Bofur quite remained a dwarf above the neck. The only change he made there was the removal of his wolf fang earring; his beard, braids, and hat stayed. Bilbo thought that his partner’s head looked somewhat mismatched with his body that way, but the other argued that since he was too tall to pass for a hobbit anyway, he might as well look like a dwarf where it mattered the most. Besides, dwarves only shaved or cut their hair out of shame, and Bofur, above all other dwarves, had always been shameless. 

As for his hat, he said that Bilbo should appreciate it—the Incident at the Door, as his first encounter with Lobelia had come to be known in town, would have been a much bigger scandal without it. 

The couple also resurrected their social lives during that year, although they kept up the appearance of being anything but a couple when they did so. They played it safe at first, sticking close to friends like Drogo and Primula and Hamfast, and when they surrounded themselves with a crowd in town, they made sure that it was a crowd of mostly Tooks and Brandybucks. The less inviting locals who saw Bofur on those outings found his hobbit attire more acceptable at least, even if his hat still earned some disapproving stares.

With their public appearances came several in-house gatherings as well. Those gatherings weren’t just in Bag End either, but also in the homes of their friends. That was how they came to discover Drogo’s strange new interest in the sport of boating.

“So you get in this thing, row it out to the middle of the water, and just sit there in it?” Bofur asked as Drogo showed them his boat behind his house one afternoon.

“Sit in it, catch fish in it, explore in it, whatever I fancy,” the dark-haired hobbit brightly elaborated. “Primula’s family does it all the time over in Buckland, and what good is living so close to a pond if the two of us aren’t going to make use of it?”

“What happens if you lose the oars while you’re out in the boat?”

“Well, they float, and you only really need one oar. If I still can’t salvage either one, I can just paddle back to shore with my hands and feet.”

“And this is fun?”

Drogo sent the dwarf a sly grin. “You won’t know that until you try it.”

“What if you should fall overboard?” Bilbo chimed in warily with Bofur. 

“The boat floats too,” his cousin answered with a shrug. “I would just hold on to that.”

“That’s not unheard of, I suppose,” the former barrel rider admitted. 

All the same, the pair politely declined every invitation that Drogo offered them to join him in the boat. Bofur wasn’t fond of the water to begin with, and he and Bilbo had both had one-too-many bad trips down the Forest River to willingly get on another watercraft so soon. The fact that his new hobby made such an adventurous duo so squeamish only seemed to spur the younger Baggins into it further, much to their dismay.

On one occasion, their closeness with Primula and Bilbo’s relation to the Tooks on her mother’s side even garnered them an invitation all the way to Buckland to celebrate the three Lithedays of mid-year. There Bofur met Drogo’s in-laws in their home of Brandy Hall, a hobbit hole under a hill very similar to Bag End. One in-law that he had the experience of meeting was Primula’s eldest brother Rorimac Brandybuck, the master of the hall.

The best way Bilbo had been able to describe Rorimac to Bofur beforehand was as the Brandybuck version of Drogo, which was not as good as it sounded. Much like Drogo, Rorimac had taken a wife with a very different background from his own and had adopted many of her family’s customs and views, but while Drogo was a traditional Shireling who had developed a less orthodox mindset, Rorimac was the exact opposite. His in-laws, the Goolds, were as traditional and set in their ways as Shirefolk came, and so he became that way as well. He tolerated Mad Baggins’s dwarf friend for the sake of his younger sister, but said no more to the scruffy outlander than he needed to throughout those three days.

The secret couple’s list of friends in Hobbiton didn’t grow much over time either, but as Bofur had insisted, the two of them became far more accepted once it was clear that they weren’t going to leave. The other local hobbits gradually got used to the idea of having a dwarf among them, and he rubbed off on enough of them that he could walk about in public without stirring up much fuss after a few years. He even managed to patch things up with Pollo Foxburr and Wilibold Knotwise, the two mischievous youths that Bilbo—or Bofur, as the story still went—had doused through the window following the Incident at the Door. 

The children of Hobbiton of course liked the bearded, bald-footed “giant” as much as they always had. That was all the encouragement that he needed to go out and start offering his service as a handyman to the townsfolk in exchange for payment. Once he earned enough, he was able to open a toyshop another year later. 

The shop was something of a self-fulfilling business. Bofur sold the items that he made for a very low price, not wanting to exclude any customers, and most of his profit went towards buying more supplies and materials to make more items. The whole endeavor was never meant to make him wealthy again. It was merely something for him to do, a way to keep his idle hands busy and out of trouble while making some children happy in the process. As more time went by, the good word of mouth about his blossoming business also helped to improve his and his housemate’s reputations a bit. 

This eased Bilbo’s paranoia a great deal, although he remained very protective and secretive of his ring. He still had yet to tell Bofur about the magic trinket, even after they had opened up about so much and proven their trust for each other. He came close to mentioning it a few times, but as always, something advised him not to at the last possible moment.

There really was no need for Bofur to know about it anyway.

Like most of his problems, Bilbo blamed his reluctance on the Sackville-Bagginses. He had used the ring to avoid them a few more times in town since his first escape, and he cringed to think of what might happen if word of its existence ever reached their greedy ears. It was best to just not let any word out.

This decision made for quite a paradox. Neither Lobelia nor Otho had paid a visit to Bag End since the Incident at the Door, and so it was Bofur that Bilbo had to thank for making matters with them slightly more bearable. While he certainly was grateful to his dwarf for that, he knew there were much better ways to express that gratitude than by revealing the ring that may very well have caused him to hit Bofur.

Birthdays were a rather unique occasion for them. Bilbo insisted, like any hobbit would, that the person turning older was supposed to give the gifts while Bofur maintained that it was dwarvish custom for that person to receive the gifts instead. The only thing they could do to settle the debate was agree to exchange gifts every time July the fifteenth and September the twenty-second came around. 

That was also what they did on October the twenty-sixth, the anniversary of their courtship.

They didn’t argue anymore about hiding their relationship. As untaken with the idea as Bofur clearly still was, he resigned himself to the fact that the Shire wasn’t ready to hear about such a thing. He had witnessed the danger of gossip enough times, so he kept his mouth shut and his hands to himself for Bilbo’s sake when they were in public together.

The only times he had trouble keeping up that pretense seemed to be at weddings, which he actually got invited to quite a few of with Bilbo. It was at Hamfast Gamgee’s wedding to Bell Goodchild in particular that the dwarf needed a few reminders not to sit so close to his hobbit. Bofur couldn’t help it; the sight of his good friend Ham smiling next to his new bride with matching flowers in their hair as they stood in the middle of Hobbiton’s Party Field on that sunny day thrilled the toymaker, and he wanted to share that same togetherness with his partner of nine years. It took some firmer chiding from Bilbo to keep Bofur away when Bell threw her bouquet to the unmarried female guests at the front of the crowd. 

The pair got to talking about dwarven wedding customs later that night after they returned home. Bofur explained that marriage was uncommon among his people, and therefore ceremonies for it were treated much more solemnly. The guests rarely included more than the couple’s immediate family, and while their union-to-be was made known to the rest of the community, it was conducted privately and wasn’t paraded about afterwards. That at least was how the weddings of common folk such as his brother and sister-in-law were treated. Those of royalty and nobility were obviously treated more publicly with more ceremony, but Bofur had never been invited to any. 

Bilbo’s favorite marriage custom that the dwarf spoke of was a practice known as the Breaking of the Talc. The rule went that on the morning of the wedding, the bride and groom would meet alone and confess their greatest faults and weaknesses to each other while holding a talc crystal, then help each other to smash it during the ceremony. This was done to signify the couple overcoming their obstacles together, and whether or not it was intended, it made for one of the event’s more entertaining moments.

Since talc crystals were scarce in the Shire, Bilbo and Bofur settled for buying and smashing a very ugly vase on their tenth anniversary. 

“Seems kind of a shame,” the dwarf pretended to lament as they set the green and pink monstrosity on the ground behind their hill. “Whoever made it probably put a lot of work into it.”

“Not nearly enough work,” Bilbo declared.

With that, the two took up one of Bilbo’s hammers together and swung it down with all of their combined strength. Five minutes and several more swings later, there was nothing left of the vase but a pile of dust and tiny broken pieces. This undertaking meant nothing official to the status of their relationship, but they still took a great deal of meaning from it.

The gifts that they exchanged later that day were in accordance with another dwarven marriage custom: matching tokens. They had to deviate a bit from tradition for the sake of avoiding suspicion though by not actually having their tokens match. Bofur’s token for Bilbo had been a pendant, a small, flat, white stone that he had etched the shape of a gemstone into and fastened to a chain. It was meant to be a symbol of the hobbit’s _Abanul_ , just as the bronze acorn pin that Bilbo gave Bofur in turn was meant to symbolize the dwarf’s lover. They were representations of their feelings for one another that the couple could wear without making the other townsfolk wise to anything—just like those threaded braids in their hair that everyone assumed were standards of whatever dwarf clan Mr. Baggins had befriended on his adventure.

The pair went to the Green Dragon that evening to show off their new tokens, then they went home and smoked their pipes together under the oak tree in Bilbo’s garden. 

That was considered the single happiest day of their lives together until five years later, when Drogo and Primula welcomed their first child into the world. They had a son named Frodo, who boasted his father’s nearly black hair and his mother’s bright blue eyes. Bofur’s experience with his thirteen nieces and nephews made him a helpful consultant for the new parents, and so he and Bilbo grew virtually inseparable from the other couple in the years that followed.

Frodo and the dwarf immediately took a liking to each other. It was Bofur who inspired the infant’s nickname, when Primula handed him her son for the first time and he blurted out that Frodo looked like a fresh little baby pinecone the way he was swaddled so snugly in his blanket. The youngster’s liking for Bofur didn’t entail much more than giggling while he tugged at the other’s facial hair, but it did the mountaineer a lot of good to get so much positive attention.

Having a baby in the family did a lot of good for Bilbo as well. The feeling of cradling that warm bundle to his chest while those tiny hands pawed at his chin in search of a beard filled him with mirth as much as the sight of his partner holding the infant did. It was the first time since Bofur’s return to the Shire that his magic ring left his thoughts at all, and the presence of that new little life in his also made it easier not to think of the deaths in his past. 

That serenity stayed with him even when Frodo wasn’t around, which slowly revived something else in him. As Bilbo tended to his pansies in his garden and enjoyed the homeliness of his house, he began to think about Rivendell and the days of peace and awe that the elven kingdom had brought him on his adventure. The more he reminisced about Rivendell, the more he found himself wondering how that Last Homely House looked after all this time. 

Four years later, another familiar face from that adventure found his way back to the Shire.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was originally going to make Bofur's birthday January 15th (James Nesbitt's birthday), but I realized that I'd already had Bofur spend an entire winter in the Shire with no mention of him having a birthday. In the end, I made it the 15th of another month that begins and ends with the same letters as January. :P
> 
> Also, the Breaking of the Talc is a custom that I made up for this story. Tolkien never divulged much about the culture of Middle-Earth dwarves, but since they're supposedly modeled after the Jewish people, I wanted dwarven weddings to include some tradition that was vaguely reminiscent of the breaking of the glass.


	15. Midsummer Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bilbo and Bofur reunite with an old friend at a party and have a very informative evening.

It was the night of Midsummer’s Eve when Gandalf the Grey returned from the East to grace the Shire with his fireworks again. As they had done decades ago, the Tooks held a celebration for the holiday in the Party Field down the hill from Bag End, and as it had been in the days of Gerontius the Old Took, the family had hired the wandering wizard to light up his “Whizpoppers” for the crowd. Whether they had decided to do so by chance or if Bilbo’s return to society had inspired them, the hobbit didn’t care. He was just thrilled to have the company of another old friend so close to home.

“So whatever has a wizard been doing for nearly the past thirty years?” Bilbo asked the towering fellow that evening. They stood together at the launching area near the center of the field, where the wizard was setting up one of his fireworks.

Gandalf chuckled. “That is quite a large question to ask, and it will require an even larger answer. The shortened version would be that I’ve been doing whatever has needed doing in whichever places it has been needed. If you desire a more detailed account, I would say that I’ve been traveling near and far across Middle-Earth, seeing to matters of great importance on behalf of the White Council.”

Bilbo smiled at the other's eloquence, then a twinge of discomfort came to him with his next question. “And...have any of those matters pertained to the Lonely Mountain?”

“A few,” the wizard said with a knowing eye on his friend. “Dain Ironfoot’s kingdom has prospered greatly since the day you last saw it, and it has remained a formidable stronghold in the East as well. It was just this past spring that I myself last visited Erebor, and the members of your old company that I spoke with seemed quite well.”

Bilbo nodded quickly with another smile and glanced down. “That’s good to hear.”

Something wilier came over Gandalf just then. “Indeed, and as good as my talks with them were, they were also quite informative. So was much of the talk that I heard on the road from Bree to Hobbiton. The word goes that you’ve taken up some strange company in your home these past many years, namely a dwarf with questionable taste in attire, when he sees fit to wear any.”

A deaf man could have picked up on the slyness in his tone, and to Bilbo it was almost roaring. The hobbit bashfully kept his eyes down as he thought of a reply.

“No disagreement there,” he sighed with a shake of his head. “Bless his soul, but presentation always was a weak link in the armor for Bofur.”

“Or a missing scale in it, as some may say,” Gandalf said with one bushy eyebrow raised. “It seems that one of your dwarf friends _did_ take you up on your invitation to come to Bag End, and he enjoyed his stay so much that he never left.”

“I would hope that he’s enjoying his stay, because I’m quite enjoying his company. Frankly, I can’t imagine living here without him now.” 

Bilbo’s voice trailed off almost dreamily with his last statement. He covered himself swiftly when he felt Gandalf’s eye lingering on him. “I mean, because such good friends are hard to come by these days.”

The knowing look never left the wizard’s gaze, but it grew kinder and more sincere. “Well I am very happy for both of you, and I am sure that your other friends in Erebor would be as well.” 

The halfling took his chances and met that gaze. Try as he might, he couldn’t hide the truth from Gandalf. He raised the corners of his mouth with his own sincerity when he saw the trustworthiness peering down at him from under the brim of that pointy hat.

At that, his companion turned to the bright yellow rocket he had set up. 

“Now, you may wish to cover your head, my dear Bilbo,” he alerted. “This one can be rather unpredictable.”

Gandalf hardly waited for the hobbit to register his warning before he touched his staff’s head to the fuse. Bilbo made a sound of confusion when he saw sparks leap from the magic device, then he squeaked when he saw the fuse light. He bundled his arms around his head and dropped to his knees in a flash as the rocket launched and a yellow streak of wayward embers shot over his hair. 

After the rocket exploded into the shape of a giant sunflower in the night sky, Bilbo hopped right back onto his feet to brush himself off. 

Gandalf observed him oddly. “If I may say so, for a hobbit of eighty years, you look and move more like one still of fifty.”

Bilbo couldn’t tell if he should be proud or ashamed of that. “Well, I wouldn’t be the first in my family to be blessed with longevity. I certainly don’t have to tell you about my grandfather Gerontius Took.”

“Certainly not, but I don’t recall long youth being one of the terms of his long life. You’re liable to surpass his one hundred and thirty years at the pace you’re keeping.”

“I rather like the thought of that,” Bilbo softly considered. 

He didn’t care to explain why, and Gandalf didn’t need an explanation. The elder studied the halfling for another suspicious moment, then abruptly changed the subject. 

“And where is Bofur this evening?” he asked as he positioned another rocket.

“Oh, nowhere we can’t easily find him, I’m sure,” Bilbo said. “I wouldn’t go searching just yet, though. He’s looking into something for me.”

“I’m sure he’ll have quite some talk of his own to share, which I shall be glad to hear after I’ve finished this round. Now, you may wish to cover your _ears_ this time. This one can be rather loud.”

Gandalf lit the new rocket’s fuse and launched it shrilly into the air, making Bilbo duck and cover in the grass once more.

* * *

Bofur was very much looking forward to the errand that Bilbo had given him. It wasn’t as confrontational as he would have liked his hobbit to be, but sending a middleman to get to the bottom of things was still a step in the right direction. Besides, the issue being looked into had plenty to do with the dwarf, and after everything he had seen and heard of Otho Sackville-Bagginses, he was itching to have some fun with that covetous grouch.

The toymaker was enjoying himself from the moment he plopped down next to Bilbo’s cousin on one of the benches by the ale kegs and made the halfling flinch.

“He puts on quite a show, doesn’t he, that wizard?” Bofur asked with a wave to the fireworks overhead.

Otho took in none of this friendliness. “That’s certainly one way of putting it,” he clipped.

“Aye, it is, it is.” The dwarf put his elbows up on top of the backrest to crowd his bench mate just a little more. That was when he got to business.

“You know, it’s funny,” Bofur mused with false pleasantness, still looking at the sky. “Just the other day, Bilbo was reading up on some of the local legislation, and he found a law that he’d never heard of before. It seems that when a hobbit passes away or otherwise forfeits his or her property, that property can only be inherited by another hobbit.”

“Sounds fair to me,” Otho stiffly played along.

“Oh, I’m sure it does,” Bofur continued, “but as the first non-hobbit to live in the Shire in the past couple of ages, I can’t help wondering why such a law even exists here—and why Bilbo hadn’t heard of it sooner.”

“Perhaps he would have if he paid more attention to the dealings of the Shire than to the dealings outside of it.”

Bofur withdrew his arms and pulled out his pipe. “Eh. Fair enough. Makes no difference to me anyway.”

Otho wrinkled his brow. “And why might it not?” 

The other reached down to rummage through his tobacco pouch. “I wouldn’t be very content living alone in a home built for someone two-thirds my size.” 

He pulled out a hefty wad of tobacco leaves from his pouch and started packing them into his pipe. “Bilbo knows that, and with how much he worries about what’ll become of Bag End after he’s gone, we figured we’d take matters into our own hands.” 

He took the stem of his pipe into his mouth then and reached into one of his pockets. “The two of us’ll probably leave it the same way the dwarves of Erebor left _their_ homes eighty-nine years ago.”

“Which way is that?”

Bofur whipped a matchstick from his pocket at that instant and struck it on the seat of the bench between him and Otho.

“Running out the door while it all burns behind us,” he finished as he lifted the tiny blame to his pipe.

Otho leapt from his seat with an outraged sneer. “You will do no such thing to that house when you leave it, you pig-headed ruffian!”

Bofur didn’t flinch. “That’s about what Bilbo said you’d say if I told you a story like that.” 

Otho’s sneer fell away to expose a look of guilty, cornered surprise.

“He also said that your mayor friend did a clever job wording that new law,” Bofur went on casually. “Anyone not paying close attention could read right over it without catching its meaning.” 

Otho leaned in, scowling and fierce-eyed. “You listen to me, dwarf. I don’t know what your game is with my cousin, but it doesn’t make you one of us.”

Bofur finally turned to look at the halfling. 

“The Baggins estate is ours to inherit and no one else’s,” Otho hissed on, “and I won’t let some cheeky, gold-digging squatter from the East stand in the way of what is rightfully mine.”

The larger figure stared right back at his denouncer as he gathered his response. 

“Otho?” he said serenely. “You wear that suit well, your wife looks lovely tonight, and I hope you both have a very nice evening.”

It was the last thing Otho had been expecting to hear, and he was too stunned by it to offer a comeback. After a quiet farewell nod, Bofur rose from the bench and walked away, leaving the dumbfounded culprit behind him.

* * *

The dwarf wasn’t put out by Otho’s words for long. A few minutes after the standoff, he crossed paths with two other hobbits and their four-year-old son, who were so glad to see him that he instantly forgot about the Sackville-Bagginses. Their son was so thrilled by his presence that the youngster had nearly climbed up to "Uncle Bofur’s" shoulders himself before the mountaineer took hold of him and lifted him the rest of the way.

Frodo clung to the flaps of that furry hat while his parents followed Bofur all the way across the party grounds to Bilbo’s table. There the master of Bag End sat with Hamfast and Bell Gamgee, the latter of who boasted a considerable bulge in her middle from the expecting couple’s first child. Many more cheerful greetings later, the seven of them were all settled around the table for a long night of chitchat.

“What happened?” Bilbo asked as his partner slouched next to him with Frodo in his lap. 

Bofur’s cheer deflated slightly. “I found out that _you were right_ , and _he_ wasn’t happy either when that came to light.”

“It could have been worse,” the hobbit muttered with a glance around. “Bruno’s here tonight too.”

Drogo winced.

“Who?” Bofur asked.

“Lobelia’s brother,” Bilbo reiterated. “Bruno Bracegirdle.”

The dwarf stared blankly into space as he repeated the words. “Lobelia’s brother Bruno Bracegirdle.” His jolliness returned as he looked at Frodo. “Now _there’s_ a tongue twister. Can you say that five times fast, Pinecone?”

The four-year-old accepted his challenge with a string of determined-sounding babble.

“What’s the problem with Mr. Bruno?” Bell asked from across the table.

“Aye,” Hamfast joined in. “He’s no miser.”

“No,” Bilbo grumbled, “but he’s a blockhead.”

“About as blockheaded as they come from Hardbottle,” Drogo added dourly.

“Aw, now that’s just too many ‘B’’s for us to work with here,” Bofur jokingly complained.

“Oh enough, all of you,” Primula scolded with a grin as she pulled Frodo back into her own lap. “You’re turning into a bunch of gossips yourselves and setting a bad example.”

“Lobelia’s brother Bruno Bracegirdle is a blockhead,” Frodo proudly informed his mother.

Primula dropped her curly head onto the boy’s with a dramatic sigh. Most of the others laughed at these theatrics, but Bilbo paled a bit from guilt. That was the point when his final companion joined the conversation.

“I will not say to praise gossip,” Gandalf noted cordially, “although when it is true, it can be most informative, as I was just telling Bilbo earlier this evening.”

The wizard threw a look to Mr. Baggins and Bofur as he lowered himself to the small table. He knelt on the ground instead of bothering with one of the hobbit-sized chairs. The dwarf gave yet another cheerful greeting, and he and Bilbo leaned most of their attention towards the silver-haired Istari while their hobbit friends moved on to another topic.

Bofur asked Gandalf with some restraint how the other members of Thorin’s company faired. While the old traveler had much to say about them, he didn’t speak of all nine; the only ones he had managed to encounter on his last visit to Erebor were Bifur, Bombur, and Dwalin. Bofur hardly seemed satisfied with such a sketchy report after his nineteen-year absence, but if he wanted to know about any of the other dwarves, he didn’t ask.

Bilbo did, though. “And how’s Balin?”

“He is fairing well these days, or so I heard,” Gandalf said. “King Dain has developed quite the ambitious and audacious streak since Erebor’s reclamation, and Balin has grown quite more agreeable to such undertakings. It is no longer the Lonely Mountain where your white-bearded friend resides, but the Misty Mountains. He is the Lord of Moria.”

Bilbo’s expression faded for a second as he recalled the name of that settlement. Bofur blinked and stared at Gandalf, shedding the last of his good spirit.

“Moria?” the dwarf echoed.

“Indeed, the city of Dwarrowdelf and the halls of King Durin,” the wizard bobbed his head. “Balin has helped Dain for some time in planning its retaking.” 

“What, he didn’t learn his lesson the first time he tried to help retake it?”

“Well he evidently learned something, because his forces drove the goblins and orcs from it with little trouble this time. He’s ruled Moria for nearly six years now.”

Bofur slumped back in his chair looking lost as the surprise washed over him. “Well...did anyone else that we know go with him? Anyone from our company?”

By this time, Gandalf plainly regretted not having more to tell. “I cannot say, since that information was not given to me, but rest assured; your cousin, brother, and all of your kin remain safe in Erebor, and they have no intention of leaving it.”

Bofur stared at the elder again, as if he was waiting to hear one assurance more. When none came, he gave a weak nod and an even weaker smile. He said nothing else after that.

Shortly afterwards, the toymaker excused himself from the table and headed steadfastly in the direction he had come from—towards the ale kegs.

* * *

Fireworks weren’t the only entertainment lined up for that evening. A band of musicians had been hired to perform throughout the party as well, and they did just that on a little stage that had been built under the Party Tree. As professionally as the group of seven practiced their craft, the celebration’s later hours had them more in the mood for some audience participation.

It didn’t take long for two of the younger band members, Pollo Foxburr and Wilibold Knotwise, to spot their first “volunteer” of the night.

“Bofur!” the skinny, dark-haired Pollo pointed to the second-largest figure seated in the crowd. “You’re no stranger to a note, mate!”

Bilbo felt a chill run down his back. Beside him, a much less concerned Bofur turned half-seeing eyes towards the pair on stage. 

“Aye, we see that clarinet of yours tucked under your belt!” the stouter, sandy-haired Wilibold called alongside Pollo.

“What makes you so sure that’s my clarinet?” Bofur called back nonchalantly.

His partner winced at the slurred-sounding quip while everyone else who heard it gave a rowdy laugh. Pollo and Wilibold snorted along with the party guests and waved for the dwarf to join them.

“Oh, come off it and get your hairy chin up here,” Pollo beckoned.

“Play us that song you were singing in the Green Dragon the other night,” Wilibold suggested. “The one about the Red Downs.”

Bofur was rising from his seat even as he protested. “Oh, I can’t remember all the words to it now. It’s too late and I’ve had too many.” He glanced down after barely a pause. “Here. Have Bilbo sing it.”

“I beg your—” the indignant hobbit began, but Bofur grabbed him under his arms and hoisted him out of his chair before he could finish.

“Come on,” the dwarf went on in a livelier muddled voice. “You know the words. You’ve been working on them for months at home. Might as well share them here.”

Bilbo wriggled and objected all the way from their table of thoroughly amused friends to the stage, where his much stronger carrier finally set him down. Pollo and Wilibold had directed their band mates into a medium-paced backup beat by then, and Bofur unsheathed his clarinet from his belt the instant he released his housemate. The window for bowing out gracefully had already closed for poor Bilbo, and he found himself gaping in fear at the sea of Shireling faces that were now aimed at him from the audience.

After a few terrifying seconds, he worked up the moxie to send Bofur a sour glare. Nineteen years later, his partner was still putting him on the spot to try and make him open up. The toymaker glanced back at him, unperturbed, and began playing the song’s melody as a lead-in. The light in those green eyes was just as coaxing as it was daring.

Bilbo huffed and pouted, then looked to Gandalf at their table in a last-ditch call for help. The same encouraging light as Bofur’s shown back at him from the wizard’s eyes. Finally giving in, the hobbit waited for his cue and followed the clarinet’s tune as he sang. 

_Near Starfield town, in the west Red Downs,_  
_One morning in July,_  
_Down a boreen green came a sweet colleen,_  
_And she smiled as she passed me by_  
_She looked so sweet from her hairy feet,_  
_To the curls of her chestnut hair,_  
_Luring as an elf, had to shake myself,_  
_To make sure I was standing there._

_From Tuckborough out to Crickhollow,_  
_And from Digby to Long Cleeve town,_  
_No lass I've seen like the sweet colleen,_  
_That I met in the west Red Downs_

_As she onward sped, had to shake my head,_  
_And I gazed with a feeling rare,_  
_And I said, wide-eyed, to a passerby,_  
_"Who's the lass with the chestnut hair?"_  
_He smiled at me, and with pride said he,_  
_"That's the gem of the Shire's crown_  
_She's young Rosie Noakes from the Harwood oaks,_  
_She's the star of the Starfield town"_

_From Tuckborough out to Crickhollow,_  
_And from Digby to Long Cleeve town,_  
_No lass I've seen like the sweet colleen,_  
_That I met in the west Red Downs_

_Traveled I’ve a bit, but was never hit,_  
_Since a farewell I bid my folks,_  
_But fair and square, I surrendered there,_  
_To the charms of young Rosie Noakes_  
_I'd a heart to let, and no tenant yet,_  
_Did I meet with in shawl or gown,_  
_Oh but in she went, and I asked no rent,_  
_From the star of the Starfield town_

_From Tuckborough out to Crickhollow,_  
_And from Digby to Long Cleeve town,_  
_No lass I've seen like the sweet colleen,_  
_That I met in the west Red Downs_

_At the crossroads fair, I'll be surely there,_  
_And I'll dress in my finest clothes,_  
_And keep weathered eyes, and a wit that’s wise,_  
_For the heart of the chestnut rose_  
_No pipe I'll smoke, no horse I'll yoke,_  
_Though with rust my plow turns brown,_  
_‘Til a smiling bride, by my own fireside,_  
_Sits the star of the Starfield town_

_From Tuckborough out to Crickhollow,_  
_And from Digby to Long Cleeve town,_  
_No lass I've seen like the sweet colleen,_  
_That I met in the west Red Downs_

The halfling knew he couldn’t hold a candle to Bofur’s singing voice, but he did the best that he could on such short notice. The crowd seemed to think much more highly of his performance. As soon as the closing line was delivered and the clarinet finished with a last chirping note, every party guest in sight burst into cheers and applause.

Bilbo stumbled backwards and right into Bofur’s waiting arm. The dwarf brought that arm around the hobbit’s shoulders to brace him as they stood side by side, and after a moment of basking in their fellow townsfolk’s approval, the pair turned to each other in exhilaration. They stayed that way for another few heartbeats until Bofur was too overcome with pride, joy, and ale to contain himself anymore.

He leaned down and kissed Bilbo square on the lips.

The cheers and the applause suddenly fizzled out. A disbelieving silence hung over the crowd in their place. The kiss hadn’t been much more than a peck, but it was blatant enough for all of the spectators to recognize it as the sign of affection that it was. Even Drogo, Gandalf, and the rest of the seemingly outed couple’s friends were at a loss right then.

No one was more stunned by the gesture than Bilbo and Bofur themselves. The pair pulled back and met each other’s horrified gawks, unable to say or do anything to cover up what had just transpired. Being the more sober one by far, Bilbo was the first to revive from that stupor.

He spun around to face the band. All seven members were as confounded as the rest of the partygoers. Bilbo hurried over to the nearest musician, a hobbit by the name of Jago Boffin, then seized his shoulders and kissed him on the lips in turn.

A new wave of laughter replaced the silence, to his utmost relief.

“Dwarven tradition,” Bilbo explained to the audience more casually. He motioned to Jago. “Pass it along. Go on.”

The doubly bewildered fiddler turned to the next band member on his right, who thankfully was his wife, and did as instructed. The kiss traveled down from the stage to a few more takers before the other Shirelings decided they had humored the strange tradition enough. Bilbo and Bofur had traveled a much farther distance from the stage by that time.

Hamfast and Bell seemed just as cluelessly entertained as everyone else by the pair’s antics. Drogo and Primula, however, traded furtive questioning glances. Gandalf merely watched with cunning amusement as the Bag End duo returned to their seats across from him.

“Such good friends truly are hard to come by these days,” he said to Bilbo.

The hobbit regarded the familiar sentiment less than graciously, then he spied Bofur reaching for the unfinished pint of ale that the dwarf had left at his seat. Mr. Baggins beat him to it and took up the drink himself.

“No, that’s enough for you,” he decreed as he brought the mug to his mouth. “ _I_ need this one.”

* * *

Gandalf unfortunately couldn’t stay long after the party was over. He hoped to see more of Bilbo though, and thus he had given the halfling the address for an inn located in the nearby town of Bree before taking his leave. Bree was a settlement just beyond the borders of Buckland, occupied mostly by western men, and the inn, The Prancing Pony, was a favorite of the wizard’s where any message for him would find its way into his hands sooner or later.

Bilbo and Bofur also took their leave of the party soon after it ended. More accurately, Bofur took his leave of it while a somewhat tipsy Bilbo allowed himself to be hauled away. The dwarf lugged his hobbit across the field and up the hill to deliver him home, then gave him a piggyback ride through Bag End. His hat had somehow wound up on that smaller, curly head while his passenger worked his way towards sobriety.

“See, I wanted it to say ‘From Crickhollow out to Tuckborough’ originally since that’s going in the opposite direction from Digby to Long Cleeve,” Bilbo rambled lazily, “but it doesn’t roll off the tongue so nicely, I’m afraid.”

“Mm-hmm,” Bofur grunted, straight-faced.

“And I’m much more partial to the sound of ‘Gamwood’ than ‘Harwood,’ but ‘Gamwood’ doesn’t work as well geographically for the song.”

“Mm-mmm.”

“Oh, but I suppose all works are abandoned rather than completed, as the saying goes,” Bilbo muttered as Bofur entered their bedroom, “and the people who heard it tonight were probably fine with it as it was.”

Bofur lowered himself to sit both of them down at the foot of the bed. “Mm-hmm.”

“Do you suppose the elves in Rivendell would have liked it?” Bilbo wondered out loud behind him. After a pause, he asked, “Bofur?”

The other started a little. “Hmm? Oh, aye. I’m sure they would have.”

Bilbo knew after this blatant lack of opinion that something was weighing heavily on the dwarf. It wasn’t difficult for him to guess what that burden might be. Clearing his head a bit, he leaned closer to speak into one of those large ears.

“Look, don’t worry about the kiss, alright? They were all willing to believe the coverup for it, I’m sure.”

“I’m sorry for that, all the same,” Bofur issued, “but...it’s not the kiss that’s distracting me.”

Bilbo picked his addled brain for other things that might have gotten to his partner that evening. His guilt returned when another possibility came to him, and he removed his borrowed hat for a more serious talk.

“What happened with Otho?” he asked with care. “What did he do when you confronted him?”

After another pause, Bofur decided to address that unpleasant matter instead of discussing his real burden.

“He said I’m not one of you.” He shrugged one shoulder. “It’s nothing my thick skin can’t handle, though.”

Bilbo suddenly felt terrible. He wrapped his arms and legs tighter around Bofur in an embrace and touched the dwarf’s bronze acorn pin with his fingertips. He also placed a kiss on his lover’s left cheek, as he often did, before speaking.

“I’m sorry I put you in that position with him,” he murmured as their heads rested together, “and I’m so sorry if he hurt you. Don’t you ever think on anything that he says. These people love you now. _I_ love you. You’re my _Abanul_.” 

Bofur calmly smiled, letting the sweet words chase away his concerns for the time being. He turned his head and pressed his face into Bilbo’s courting braid. “I love you too, Acorn.”

They sat that way for a few peaceful minutes until the toymaker’s mischievous side resurfaced. Without warning, he slid himself forward over the edge of the bed and turned himself around. Now Bilbo was straddling him face to face. 

Bofur planted his hands on the mattress with the hobbit between them. He leaned in next, tipping Bilbo backwards, and when he felt the smaller figure eagerly grip him tighter, he moved onward to bring one knee at a time up onto the bed. From there, the dwarf crawled slowly towards the pillows with his suspended lover clinging to his underside. He gazed down at the halfling with a hunter’s eye and a lusty smirk the entire way, then his expression softened when he reached his destination and he lowered them to the sheets together.

Bilbo looked up keenly into his dear one’s eyes. “There’s something you should know.”

Bofur hesitated. “What’s that?”

“It’s another confession I have to make.”

The mountaineer’s bedroom face vanished. “What?”

Bilbo didn’t move a hair when he answered. 

“Jago Boffin is an astonishing kisser when you catch him off guard.”

Bofur let out a loud snort and keeled over sideways.

“I’m sorry,” Bilbo went on with mock somberness over the dwarf’s giggling. “I can’t get him out of my head. He has me so flustered right now.”

Bofur pulled himself back up after one more laugh and sent the hobbit a teasing grin. “So who’s it gonna be then? Boffin or Bofur?”

Bilbo feigned uncertainty. “Well...could you possibly run down your case for me again?”

Their lips finally met at that. After he eased into the action and before he became lost in it, Bofur reached back to feel for his hat. His fingers found it effortlessly, then with all the deftness of a true craftsman, he brought it forward and hung it on one of the headboard posts without breaking his second kiss of the night.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter came out much longer than I planned for it to, but I wanted all of the party scenes to be together.
> 
> The song that Bilbo sings is actually the Irish folksong “Star Of The County Down” but with a few words replaced to make it Shire-oriented: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEt2XdN_TbQ. Maybe Gandalf remembered it and shared it with some men who passed it along from generation to generation.
> 
> And for the record, Jago Boffin is an actual hobbit from Tolkien's universe.


	16. Getting to the Bottom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bofur's drinking escalates as the news about Moria becomes too much for him to handle, and Bilbo's suspicions start to return.

Bilbo began to notice a drastic change in Bofur following Midsummer’s Eve. The usually chatty dwarf became all but mute, and while he still smoked his pipe daily, his other pastimes of singing and toymaking turned to staring in thought and pacing through Bag End with his empty hands behind his back. He seemed haunted by something, but never willing to share what.

It was close to a week later, upon discovering Bofur knelt with an empty stare in the garden in front of the purple forget-me-nots, that the hobbit finally plucked up the courage to ask what was wrong.

“I keep thinking of what Gandalf said about Moria,” the other droned without looking up. “Of how he didn’t know if anyone else from our company had gone there with Balin. He saw so few of the others in Erebor.” 

Bilbo awkwardly lifted and lowered himself on the balls of his feet. “Why don’t you write a letter to Bifur or Bombur to find out?”

“Because they won’t be able to read it.”

The conversation ended there, and Bofur avoided the subject every time Bilbo tried to bring it up again afterwards. The halfling had a strong inkling of why his partner would be so fixated on the matter, and he considered writing to Erebor himself. Certainly Balin’s brother Dwalin or King Dain would have knowledge of who else had ventured out to help reclaim Moria. It was a sensible solution, and yet Bilbo couldn’t bring himself to so much as start a letter to one of them. 

He suspected that he didn’t want to make that contact for the same reason that Bofur probably didn’t want to. If they received bad news in response to any letters, the dwarf might have no choice but to leave the Shire and Bilbo with it in order to return to the Lonely Mountain—or he might try to take Bilbo with him.

The hobbit’s only other solution was to distract his partner from those plaguing thoughts. When Bofur wasn’t working at the toyshop or engaging in uncomfortable mealtime conversations at home, Bilbo had him either doing chores or running errands. This seemed to help well enough at first, but it was only a matter of time before the troubled mountaineer found his way to the taverns at night. 

That became an even worse problem than the initial one. There was hardly a night for the next month that didn’t begin with Bofur leaving Bag End at sundown and end with him stumbling back to it drunk around sunup. There were also more than a few times where he didn’t stumble home until late the following morning, much to Bilbo’s chagrin. The halfling scolded him in vain more times than he could count, but that embarrassment and disappointment turned to alarm one day when a very crucial question occurred to Bilbo. 

How was Bofur affording so many drinks night after night?

The dwarf didn’t have money to waste anymore. He had waived all of his riches from Erebor, and the profits from his toyshop were so few that they couldn’t possibly have sustained him for so long. If the drinks responsible for Bofur’s condition were in fact being paid for, then the dwarf couldn’t be paying for them out of his own pocket.

This concerned Bilbo so much that he didn’t even dare to ask Bofur about it. Instead, he made a habit of counting his own finances every time his housemate went out for the evening. He also checked his wine closet to see if Bofur might simply be bringing “his own” beverages to those taverns, but no coins or bottles were ever found missing. 

Nothing at all suggested that the hobbit was being stolen from, though the mere thought of such a thing ever befalling him again was enough to make him protective of his magic ring once more. Soon after that happened, he realized the perfect way to solve his mystery.

Just as he had nineteen years ago, Bilbo donned his concealment as soon as Bofur left him alone for the evening and stealthily trailed the taller figure through Bag End. His only challenge was slipping out the front door after Bofur without getting it closed on him, then the invisible halfling easily followed his dwarf off into the night. 

A short hike brought them to Hobbiton’s Ivy Bush Inn. Pollo Foxburr and Wilibold Knotwise were already waiting for Bofur inside the inn’s tavern, and the moment his two young friends greeted him and waved him over to their table, the dwarf returned to his old chipper self. Bilbo couldn’t help but smile at that, then he took a few steps back to spy on the trio from a slightly more polite distance.

What he witnessed over the next three hours slowly erased that smile.

It all made sense to him finally. Bofur wasn’t the one buying his way into intoxication. Pollo and Wilibold were. The pair would purchase drink after drink for him, and the toymaker would eagerly oblige them until he was too disoriented to lift the mug anymore. In the meantime, he would carry on and bumble around the tavern while a roomful of hobbits pointed and laughed at his drunken spectacle. Why Pollo and Wilibold would place their supposed friend in such a position became apparent to Bilbo as he watched the duo cackle along with the rest of the patrons throughout the night.

This discovery did more than erase his smile. It broke his heart. The very same Shirelings that he had insisted loved Bofur had spent the past month poisoning and humiliating him for their own amusement, and his poor dear one was either too naive to notice or so happy for all of the free ale drowning his worries that he didn’t care.

Bilbo took in the horrible scene until he could no longer deny it and his vision went hazy with tears. That was when he left the table and hurried around in search of a hiding place where he could take off his ring. He had to remove Bofur from this tavern. He had to rescue his partner and bring him home to the one place in Hobbiton where he was guaranteed to be safe and cared for. 

Bofur, on the other hand, had no desire to be whisked from anywhere. As many pints as he had put away by that hour, the dwarf still had the coordination to get on top of his table and attempt a song for his audience. The piece that he chose to grace their ears with was rather crude by Shire standards. It told the story of two women who stumbled onto a drunken ranger in a kilt and tied a blue ribbon around the prize-worthy “bonnie star” under his tartan skirt, or at least that was what Bilbo gathered from the barely intelligible lyrics.

Bofur’s conviction seemed to thrill his listeners more than the words he was singing anyway. He could tell even in his state that they approved of his performance, which only encouraged him more. The dwarf was so swept up in the moment that when he reached the end of his naughty tune, he leapt off of the table to land on an entire bench full of hobbits alongside it. 

The patrons on that bench weren’t so thrilled to have their larger entertainer come crashing down onto them. They were even less thrilled to have the wooden piece of furniture under them break and collapse from the impact.

Bilbo instantly forgot about his search for a hiding place when he saw that. He even forgot that he was still invisible; he only thought to run to Bofur right then. He would likely have helped the dwarf up and hauled him away from a very puzzled crowd with his ring still on, but as fate would have it, two other hobbits reached the mountaineer before he did.

Drogo and Hamfast had obviously just entered the tavern. Both of them still wore their coats, and they were the only halflings other than Bilbo or the staff who looked and sounded completely sober. They each grabbed one of Bofur’s arms and lifted him to his feet, away from his agitated bench mates.

“Alright, folks,” Drogo announced offhand. “Show’s over. Go back to your drinks.”

Bilbo stopped in his tracks in surprise.

Pollo looked up at Bofur’s rescuers from the other side of the table. “Oi, what’re you doing?”

“We’re taking Mr. Bofur home,” Hamfast declared as he and Drogo began to stagger away with their load.

“Oh come on,” Wilibold complained to them. “We need him here.”

“You need a lot more than that, Wilibold Knotwise,” Drogo snapped.

“I didn’t finish my last pint,” Bofur protested sloppily in the center of all the fuss. He could only flail one arm in his table’s general direction. “Let me just finish that.”

“No, no, we’re taking you home now,” Drogo said patiently.

“You’re taking me home?”

“Yes we are.”

“Oooh...” Bofur halted and threw a mocking grin back at the rest of the tavern. “Won’t Lobelia be jealous?”

He received a final burst of laughter from his fellow patrons and allowed Drogo and Hamfast to escort him away. Bilbo fell into step behind them without a word. The show _would_ have been over then, except the thought of Lobelia Sackville-Baggins had suddenly reminded Bofur of an equally unsavory individual and drawn one more tune from him.

_Clap, snap! The black crack!_  
_Grip, grab! Pinch and nab!_  
_Batter and beat!_  
_Make ‘em stammer and squeak!_  
_Pound, pound, far underground,_  
_Down, down, down in Goblin Town!_

“Where did you ever learn a song like that, Mr. Bofur?” Hamfast asked him.

“In Goblin Town!" the dwarf crowed at the ceiling. "From a goblin king who’s _dead_ now!”

“Oh, how quaint,” Drogo quipped.

The two hobbits led Bofur out the door then with the third secretly in tow. The streets of Hobbiton were empty and quiet at that hour, which made for a refreshingly uneventful walk through town. It was when they reached the crossroads between the hill of Bag End and the bridge to Bywater that their party separated.

“Alright Hamfast,” Drogo said to the gardener. “Thank you again for coming to me when you saw that back there. I think I can take him the rest of the way myself.”

Hamfast seemed reluctant to leave his two friends in mid-journey. “You’re sure?” 

“Positive. You should go home to Bell. She’s probably climbing the walls waiting for that Gouda anyway.”

Hamfast adjusted his hold on the packaged block of cheese that he had under one arm. He had purchased it from the Ivy Bush right before discovering Bofur in the tavern. He supposed he ought to reward his expecting wife’s late-night cravings as soon as possible, seeing how they had brought him and Drogo to the dwarf’s rescue. Once he saw that the other halfling was indeed managing their groggy companion just fine alone, he complied.

After the three exchanged their farewells and Hamfast made a right towards the bridge, Drogo steered Bofur to the left to begin up the road to the hill. Bilbo realized that he should leave them as well and hurry ahead to pretend that he had been at home all along, but something compelled him to linger next to them for just a bit longer. He supposed he was reluctant to walk away from Bofur too after what had unfolded in the tavern earlier.

“So how’s Primula doing?” the bearded fellow spoke up pleasantly as they resumed trudging along. 

Drogo pulled Bofur’s arm more securely over his shoulders and tightened his grip around the other’s waist. “She’s well,” he answered with the same pleasantness. “She’s probably sound asleep right now with no idea that I’ve even left the back yard. I was doing a bit of stargazing by the pond when Hamfast came around tonight.”

“And how’s Frodo?”

“He’s doing quite well,” the hobbit smiled to himself. “He reminds me more and more of myself every day, and yet I can still keep up with him. Primula and I owe you a lot of thanks for making that possible, you know.”

“It’s not hard keeping up with the wee ones once you know what they’re about,” Bofur slurred. “The trick is just learning how to relate to them, and you’ve done that fine without me.”

Drogo sent his friend a joking look. “You’re _sure_ you don’t have any children of your own that made you into such an expert?”

Bofur stopped as soon as the words sank in. His drowsily pleasant expression suddenly dropped into a desolate one and turned inward. Drogo stopped too and gaped at him in dread.

“I’m so sorry,” he almost stammered. “I didn’t mean to—”

“No, no, it’s alright,” Bofur cut him off gently. “I never _had_ any children of my own. It’s just...there’ve been a few, come and gone, who sort of felt like they were mine. You know?”

Drogo nodded cautiously. “I think I do.”

Bilbo lowered a somber, all-too-knowing gaze beside them. Their party moved on then.

“It’s not all that unheard of, dwarves not having children,” Bofur assured Drogo. “Women are something of a rarity among our kind to begin with, and many of us, the lads and lasses both, don’t fancy each other’s company enough to settle down, even if we may want children. Sometimes we just fancy something else a bit more than each other’s company.”

A hint of understanding passed over both hobbits’ faces at his last cryptic comment. As usual, Bofur kept talking without noticing. 

“So, since we can’t have children, we focus on the wee ones already in our lives. Nieces and nephews, younger siblings, younger friends...” He slipped in and out of his sorrow again. “We treat them the same way we would treat our own.”

Drogo faltered a little. “So...my son...”

“Your son is _your_ son,” the toymaker said. “I know I’m just Uncle Bofur, and that’s good enough for me. I’m saying that if you and Primula ever need help with anything for him, I’ll do all that I can, and I know Bilbo will too.”

The dark-haired hobbit gave him a long, significant look as they walked. “Thank you.”

“Families aren’t made only by blood,” Bofur continued. “Not to dwarves, and not to Bilbo either. They’re also made by bonds, and those can be stronger than blood.”

“Well, then you certainly have family around here,” Drogo said warmly. He mused with a twinkle in his eye, “I imagine it’s especially easy to bond with someone who won’t let go of your mustache.” 

“The way to our hearts _is_ through our hair,” Bofur admitted.

It took every thread of restraint that Bilbo possessed not to join their conversation. So many of his partner’s deepest longings and feelings had just been laid bare, including a few that had never been shared before. He wanted to pull off his ring and take Drogo’s place as the one helping his _Abanul_ home—to be the one that Bofur could lean on and confide in—and also to take him off of his cousin’s hands before Bofur shared anything else. In the end, he knew that he couldn’t do any of those things without raising suspicion, so he finally scampered ahead of the pair to get himself situated in Bag End.

He played the part of a surprised housemate well when Drogo came knocking at the door with Bofur ten minutes later. He had no trouble playing a saddened housemate either when Drogo told him what had occurred at the Ivy Bush. Bilbo helped to pick up Bofur again after “learning” about the incident, and he led the way to Bag End’s master bedroom where they put their grinning charge to rest for the night. 

The two hobbits sat in chairs beside the bed until the dwarf was fast asleep. When the sound of those high-pitched, nasally snores began to emerge, the younger Baggins had more to say to his host.

“You’re certain he’ll be alright?”

“It’s not the first time he’s come home in this condition,” Bilbo said flatly. “He’ll survive to the morning just like he always does.”

Drogo watched his cousin in the corner of one eye. “And what will a good friend like you be doing until then, since you’ve put him in _your_ bed instead of his?”

Bilbo felt all of the heat drain from his face once the question was out. He was sure that the other halfling could see it draining away as well. It hadn’t dawned on him once in that rush to get Bofur laid down that he was doing so in the “wrong” bedroom. A tense silence hung between him and Drogo before he turned warily to his visitor. 

Drogo took one look at Bilbo’s pale, trapped expression and stood up. His head hung low and his hands found refuge in his pockets as he thought of his next words.

“Look, Bilbo,” he said in a hushed voice, “I don’t blame you for worrying about this getting out.” He met the other’s eye. “I don’t. I just want you to know that you don’t have to worry around me or Primula.”

Bilbo straightened up in his chair, and opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He was too thrown off by Drogo’s declaration to do anything but stare at him. Sensing this, the other Shireling bid him goodnight with a nod and strolled quietly out of the room.

The master of Bag End remained seated by the bed well after he heard Drogo leave the house. He brought himself out of his daze by running his fingers lightly through Bofur’s hair while his other hand reached up to feel the etching in his stone pendant. Bilbo’s senses soon returned to him, as did all of his memories of that emotional night, and he leaned down with a weary, shaken heart to rest his brow against the side of his sleeping lover’s head.

* * *

The hobbit had to reprise his stunned housemate role the next morning when the owner of the Ivy Bush showed up at his door asking for Bofur. The story of how his dwarf had jumped onto a crowded bench and broken it was no less mortifying the third time he was forced to experience it, and Bofur’s inability to recall the mishap after the owner described it so thoroughly made things all the more embarrassing for Bilbo.

Regardless of whether or not the toymaker remembered what he had done, the fact stood that he had done it, and therefore he was responsible for repairing the damage. He retrieved his bag of carving tools and a few spare supplies, and as soon as he was well enough for the journey, he followed the inn’s owner back into town to get to work. Bilbo didn’t accompany them, which Bofur decided was probably for the better.

Repairing the bench was a more time-consuming job than the reluctant handyman had predicted, courtesy of his headache. He didn’t finish with it until the late afternoon, at which point he had attracted the attention of quite a few patrons. Who among them had actually been there to witness the accident eluded him, but they all seemed aware that he had been the one to cause it. Bofur could feel their eyes on him as he repacked his tools and supplies, and he swore he could hear the word “dwarf” scattered throughout their mutters as he exited the tavern.

It was no wonder to him after that how living among such people could have driven Bilbo so close to madness nineteen years ago. 

The mutters of “dwarf” didn’t end when Bofur left the Ivy Bush. They pestered him like gnats all throughout town as he made his way back towards Bag End, and the longer that his trek home went on, the more persistent they became. The thought that the people uttering them all seemed to know something about him that he didn’t and weren’t going to tell it to him became so grating to Bofur that he eventually strayed from his course to go back and investigate what he was hearing.

The talk was concentrated most heavily in the marketplace. Determining that, he followed it straight to that colorful hub of activity with a list of questions at the ready in his head. When he traced the gossip all the way back to what had to be its source, the ink and quill booth near the market’s eastern edge, he noticed that the crowd there was standing back a good distance to give someone or something a wide berth. Bofur weaved his way to the front of that crowd, and as soon as he laid eyes on the cause of their alarm, he froze just like everyone else.

He wasn’t the dwarf that Hobbiton had been muttering about. The one standing in front of the booth was.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first song that Bofur is mentioned singing in the Ivy Bush Inn is "The Scotsman Song" or "The Drunken Scotsman." It's hilarious if you've never heard it before: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZ35SOU9HTM.
> 
> The second song that Bofur sings is the version of "Down In Goblin Town" from the film _An Unexpected Journey._
> 
> The Ivy Bush Inn is an actual establishment in Hobbiton created by Tolkien.


	17. Broken Bonds and Hearts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bilbo and Bofur happily reunite with another member of their old company, but things take a turn for the worse when Moria comes up in the conversation.

The old Bofur finally returned to Bag End later that same afternoon, although he didn’t return alone. He didn’t return on foot either; a loud whinny from outside made Bilbo drop what he was doing in the kitchen and head straight to the door, which he opened to find his partner grinning and waving to him from atop a shaggy gray pony by the gate. The toymaker was riding as a passenger while another dwarf sat in front of him to steer the animal.

It took Bilbo longer than he would have liked to recognize that second dwarf. His very first thought was that the fellow was Nori, given his narrow face, his long, brown hair and beard, and the slight rasp to his voice, but he was far too young and had far too modest a hairstyle to be the former thief from their quest. The hobbit began to guess his identity from the satchel slung across his torso and the thick, wool mittens on his hands, as well as from how mindfully Bofur helped him off of his pony and double-checked the reins after they were tied to the fence. It wasn’t until the pair made their way arm-in-arm up to Bilbo and he saw the visitor’s large, brown eyes that he realized he was looking at a grownup Ori.

“Where is that little dwarfling with the sweater and the slingshot who wearied his brothers with talk of besting dragons?” Bilbo was practically glowing when he asked the question.

“He’s underneath all this hair and armor!” Ori answered with glee.

It also took a while in the midst of their embraces and elated greetings to gather what the young scribe was doing alone in the Shire. Apparently he had been part of a dwarven caravan traveling west to the Blue Mountains in search of recruits, but he had stopped off along the way to try and track down his two old friends. Ori smiled when he noticed Bilbo and Bofur’s courting braids and even got a bit rosy in the cheeks, but he had the manners not to ask about them. 

Bofur plainly had a few questions of his own for the youth, but those also went unasked. Bilbo withheld his inquiries too, if only to keep from potentially dampening their reunion. 

The three of them spent the rest of the day and much of the evening celebrating. Bilbo made what must have been his largest dinner and supper since his return from Erebor, larger even than the ones he had prepared on Bofur’s first night back in the Shire, and the dwarves filled the few hours between those meals with music. Bofur showed off his skills on his clarinet as always while Ori surprised his hosts by playing some well-practiced melodies on a flute. Something familiar in how the latter held his instrument and the bouncing quality of what he performed gave the hobbit a good idea of where he had learned to play.

To say that Mr. Baggins was happy to have another member of Thorin’s company in Bag End again would have been an understatement. Seeing Ori laughing and making merry again after his despair at their last parting filled the halfling’s heart with joy beyond measure, and the sight of Bofur doing the same after that month of endless worry surely tripled that feeling. Bilbo was so overjoyed that he even brought out a keg of ale for their party and didn’t think twice when Bofur helped himself to it throughout the evening.

The three of them spent so much time reveling in each other’s company that they nearly forgot to catch up on the past nineteen years. The moon had been in the sun’s place for several hours when they finally got around to that business, and they spent at least another hour covering it. Ori spoke of Dwalin and Bifur and Bombur just like Gandalf had, but he also spoke of what Balin, Glóin, Glóin’s brother Óin, and Dori and Nori had done with themselves in Erebor since Bofur had left. 

Bilbo sat cattycorner to the storyteller at the diningroom table, nursing from his own mug and listening to the accounts with a distant fondness. Bofur, on the other hand, wasn’t so content to sit still after the dozen or so pints he had drunk. The dwarf was crouched on the kitchen floor, drawing more ale from the keg’s increasingly difficult tap, when Ori started running out of things to say about his older brothers.

“So Dain made Nori an informant,” Bofur chuckled, already slurring his words. “I’m glad the old scoundrel found a good use for his skill set, although I never knew how he could be so stealthy with a hairstyle like his. Does he still have that?”

“I assume he does,” Ori said with a sip from his mug.

Bofur made an odd face without looking back. “Assume? Why wouldn’t you know?”

Ori prepared himself. “Because I haven’t seen him in about six years.”

Bilbo lifted his head from his drink and stared at the scribe. The tap suddenly went silent as Bofur let go of it. A long pause fell over the couple as their guest’s statement sank in, then the hobbit looked to his partner. 

Bofur gave the tap another squeeze, filling his mug just a little more. He was going to need it.

“And what about Dori, lad?” he asked cagily, still crouching with his back turned. “Have you seen him lately?”

“Not in six years,” Ori said. 

Even then, Bofur tried to joke his way through the dread. “It took you that long to get from Erebor to Hobbiton? Did they give you the slowest pony they had, or have the places moved farther apart from each other in the last two decades?”

Ori set down his mug and shifted in his seat. “Well, you see, I didn’t come here from Erebor.”

“Where did you come here from?”

Bilbo slowly set his drink down as well and sent Ori an almost pleading look. The young dwarf lifted excited brown eyes to him. 

“From Moria,” he said.

Bilbo went frigid to the bone.

There was another long pause before Bofur wobbled onto his feet. He turned around, his overflowing mug in hand, and swayed back over to his seat across from Ori. The expression he showed was a calm one, but Bilbo could see every emotion that was boiling behind it.

The older dwarf plopped onto his chair and brought his mug down onto the table like it was a gavel full of ale. He kept his gaze lowered for a beat before fixing it on Ori. 

“What are you doing in Moria?” he asked brusquely.

His subject smiled. “Balin reclaimed it for King Dain. A whole army of us charged in and drove the goblins right out six years ago. The orcs too. They barely put up a fight. We took them so by surprise that they just scattered. I’ve been living there in Balin’s colony ever since, and so has Óin.”

“What, did they draft the two of you?” Bofur seemed hopeful for that at least to be the case.

Ori scrunched his eyebrows as if he thought the other was still joking. “Of course not. Balin needed medics to come along, so Óin signed up, and he needed a scribe to document the colony’s progress, so I told him I was up for it.”

“And those were your exact words to him?” Bofur asked darkly. “That you were ‘up for it’?”

Bilbo glanced up and down between the fuming dwarf and his drink, growing more anxious by the minute. Ori’s humorous look faded too as he finally sensed something was wrong. 

“I suppose they were,” he replied.

“Uh huh,” Bofur droned with his gaze aimed down again. “And this journey to the Blue Mountains that you’re a part of right now, I’m guessing that’s to find more dwarves who’re ‘up’ for Moria just like you, right?”

“Yes.”

“Yes,” the elder echoed to himself. He screwed up his lips in thought, then threw Ori a glare that betrayed his pleasant tone. “Do you know how old Fíli and Kíli were when they died?”

“Bofur...” Bilbo objected quietly.

The questioner ignored him. “Just answer me that, lad. I know it’s unpleasant to think about, and you’ve obviously forgotten a lot of things about that battle for Erebor, but try to guess.”

Ori ended up simply shaking his head. Bilbo couldn’t tell if the youngster honestly didn’t know or if he was just too shocked to attempt an answer.

Bofur provided it for him. “They were sixty-seven and sixty-two years old, five and ten years younger than you are right now. Fíli was only five years younger than you when Azog the Defiler ran him through with a sword from behind and dropped his dead body over a cliff.”

“Bofur!” Bilbo scolded. “That’s enough.”

“No, sixty-seven years old is _not_ enough!” the dwarf misunderstood. “It isn’t nearly enough! He was a child!” 

Bofur pointed at Ori. “Both of them were, and so are you! What were you thinking when you told Balin you were ‘up’ for walking into that death trap in the Misty Mountains?”

The lad had found some courage again. “I wasn’t happy in Erebor and I wanted to go to a place where I could do some good.”

“Oh, where you could do some good!” the other mocked him. “I see, and what good do you plan on doing when _you’re_ the one laid out on a stone slab with everyone standing around you? You sure won’t do your brothers any good that way.”

“Bofur, please calm—” Bilbo tried with misty eyes.

“How did Dori and Nori take it when they found out you were going to Moria?” Bofur pressed on. “Were they pleased, or were they _smart_?”

Ori averted his eyes grimly, earning another finger jab from his companion.

“There! There, you see? They weren’t pleased. What did you do, sign up for the trip behind their backs just like last time? That’s quite a habit you’ve developed.”

Bofur’s demeanor changed from mockery to pain as he leaned closer. “Do you have any idea how much more hurt than you your brothers were to see Fíli and Kíli laid out that night and to know how easily _you_ could’ve been laid out there too? How could you put them through this after that? How could you be so thoughtless? How could you be so _selfish_?”

“ _You_ left Erebor because you weren’t happy there either,” Ori lifted his head to fire back. “You have no right to judge me, Bofur. None. I’m not a child anymore, and you’re not my father.”

Bofur shot up onto his feet. “Well _someone_ bloody well has to be!”

All of the fight left Ori in a visible twinge of heartache.

That was the last straw for Bilbo. He reached across the table and yanked Bofur’s mug right out of his hand.

“Alright, that’s it,” he declared, getting his partner’s attention at last. “You’ve had quite enough ale for tonight.”

Bofur spun towards him and roared. “You give that back!”

“I will not!” Bilbo barked in return.

A heated stare-down ensued between the couple. Just when it seemed like the worst might happen, Bofur broke their eye contact and turned to Ori again. The smaller dwarf was plastered to the backrest of his chair in horror. 

That gave Bofur an idea.

“You know what?” he concluded. “You never made it to the Blue Mountains. You were kidnapped by a burglar along the way.”

With that, he made his way around the table and passed Bilbo to storm out of the room.

Ori roused somewhat from his fright. “What are you...?”

Bofur was beyond listening. Onward he staggered through the parlor and into the entrance hall until he nearly fell against the coat rack. He regained his bearings just long enough to stoop and snatch Ori’s satchel full of writing supplies from the floor.

That brought the scribe back to his senses. “Hey!” 

Ori sprang from his seat and also rushed past Bilbo towards the entrance hall. The hobbit started to follow, but backtracked for a moment to dump Bofur’s ale down the sink.

“Bilbo?” Bofur called out in his drunken drawl as he carried Ori’s bag away. “Be a mate and get the cupboard keys.”

“Bring that back!” Ori demanded. “You can’t force me to stay here!”

“No? Watch me.”

“Give me that!” the youngster growled as he caught up.

It wasn’t much of a tug-of-war that followed. The older dwarf didn’t have the wherewithal to keep a grip on the satchel, and when its rightful owner grabbed it and yanked it from him, Ori immediately stumbled backwards with his prize in his hands. He nearly crashed into Bilbo as the hobbit caught up to him in turn, then his trip ended with a smack against the wall behind him. He slid along that wall, pointing at Bofur and clutching his bag to his chest as he continued backing away. 

“Stay away from me,” he warned.

A sober light kindled in Bofur’s eye.

Ori backed all the way to the front door. After a final frantic stare, he felt behind him, wrenched the door open, and ducked outside. Bilbo dashed after him, hesitating once to try and say something to Bofur. A failed attempt later, he ran outside.

His distraught visitor was already wearing his satchel and untying his pony at the fence when the hobbit spotted him.

“Ori, wait,” Bilbo urged as he hurried down the path. “Wait!”

“I have to go,” the other said with strain. “The rest of the caravan’s due to arrive at the mountains tomorrow afternoon. I need to be there to oversee the recruiting.”

“But you can’t leave right now. What kind of a host would I be if I let you run off at this time of night in your condition?”

“I’m fine. Thank you very much for dinner and supper, Bilbo, but I’ve stayed here too long. Clearly, I have.”

The dwarf took up his pony’s reins and nudged open the front gate. He climbed onto his saddle then. Bilbo threw himself the rest of the way down the path and grabbed one of his friend’s hands.

“Ori, please! If not for Bofur’s sake or your own, then for mine, don’t leave tonight.”

He sounded more desperate than he meant to, but all the talk of poor Fíli and Kíli had him deeply concerned for the other youngster’s safety. Ori must have sensed that, because he made no move to steer his pony away. He made no move to dismount it either, though; he merely sat in the saddle, studying his and the halfling’s joined hands while debating what to do.

“What do _you_ think of me going to Moria?” he asked at long last.

“It doesn’t matter what I think,” Bilbo said.

“It matters to me.”

The hobbit stared up at Ori, feeling the weight of the whole world on him just then. 

“I don’t blame you for wanting to get away from Erebor,” he said with care. “I just hope that wasn’t the only reason why you went to Moria.”

The other met his eye with equal care. “It wasn’t.”

Bilbo gave a meaningful nod. “Then that’s all I can ask for. Now please, come down from there and come back inside.”

Ori turned his head away. “I can’t do that.”

“Ori, that wasn’t entirely Bofur back there. He had too much to drink and he got upset. He didn’t mean to say any of those things. Please understand, he’s been worried sick over you for weeks, ever since he learned about Moria. He got upset because he cares.”

Bilbo wet his lips and continued with a calmer tone. “He loves you. Really, he does. You’re like a son to him. He’s always spoken fondly of you, and he wouldn’t have left you a share of his riches if he didn’t care about your wellbeing.”

Ori relented slightly at these words, but he still didn’t budge from the saddle.

The hobbit pressed on. “It’s been a long day and the three of us need to rest, you most of all. The sun will be up in a few hours, and you can go then. Please, just stay here and get some sleep in the meantime, for me. I’ll talk to Bofur.”

“Are you sure you should do that?” 

Bilbo tightened his grip on the dwarf’s larger, mitted hand. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

Ori cast his sad brown eyes over Bilbo for nearly a minute, then grasping that smaller hand, he sluggishly climbed down from his steed.

* * *

Bofur was gone from the entrance hall when the two of them went back inside. He wasn’t in the kitchen and dining room area either, or in any other room that they passed along the way. Since the sharp-eared halfling doubtfully would have missed the sound of a drunken dwarf “slipping” out the back door, he had to assume that his partner was still in Bag End somewhere.

After making a quick cup of tea to settle Ori’s nerves, Bilbo showed the lad to the guest room and left him in peace for the night. From there, Mr. Baggins went for a walk through the house in search of Bofur, only to find one empty room after another. He was working his way towards alarm when he returned to the dining room and came to a halt.

Bilbo could see across the hall into his pantry from where he stood, and he had a perfect view of his wine closet.

The door was wide open.

At that moment, he felt the fear that he had insisted to Ori didn’t exist. There was nowhere else in the house where Bofur could be, and the hobbit could imagine how wild his dwarf might become in that room after how long he had resisted the urge to venture into it. The thought of encountering someone that wild in such a dark, confined space rooted Bilbo in place at first, but he knew he couldn’t stay there. Just like with Thorin at Erebor all of those years ago, he needed to confront his unsound companion for the sake of everyone in that house. 

The halfling took in a deep breath, still thinking the worst of what he might walk in on, and crept all the way to his wine closet. He dawdled in the doorway to breathe again before edging over the threshold. His eyes didn’t adjust to the storage chamber’s dim lighting until he was standing nearly in the center of it.

Sure enough, that was when he found Bofur.

The dwarf was sitting on the floor near the far end of the room with one side turned to his seeker. His knees were drawn up in front of him with his brow wedged between them, and his hands were clutching a large bottle of Winyard over the crown of his bowed, hatless head. He didn’t move, but sensing that Bilbo was with him, he broke their silence with a raw, quivering voice. 

“Where is he?”

Bilbo faltered, keeping a wary eye on the bottle in those powerful hands. “He’s in the guest room. I talked him into staying for the night, but I think he should be left to rest right now.”

Bofur remained still. “How bad was it?”

The hobbit faltered again, then suddenly straightened up. His eyes had adjusted to the shadows, and he could see now that the seal on Bofur’s scavenged bottle was still intact. His partner hadn’t drunk any of its contents.

That reassured him enough to step closer.

“Not so bad that we can’t talk it over, I’m sure,” he said much more genially.

Bofur lowered the bottle and raised his head before the halfling reached him. Bilbo stopped again when he saw a sick expression and glistening, red-rimmed eyes on the other’s face. The dwarf stared unseeing into the wall ahead of him.

“I want this,” he said, jostling the wine bottle, “so much right now. I’ve wanted this for years, but it’s not mine to open. I can’t think of a time before in my whole life when that mattered, and then I imagine all the monstrous things I must have said and done to that poor lad to make him run off into the night like that...” 

His scruffy face crumpled as his voice failed him.

Bilbo crossed his last couple of steps and knelt beside Bofur. The look that he gave the larger figure was one of compassion rather than condemnation. After all, who was he to judge someone for letting the love of something toxic twist their mind?

“Ori’s alright now,” he stressed. “He’s tucked away comfortably with a hot cup of tea in his belly and a soft pillow under his head.”

Bofur was too lost in grief to savor that image. “You know, when he told me I should leave Erebor to see you, I asked him if he’d be alright without me. I asked him that, and...he hesitated. He didn’t say ‘yes’ right away. He had to think about it first—”

“Bofur, don’t do that to yourself,” Bilbo chided him softly. 

“I should’ve caught that,” the other went on. “I should have. He wasn’t alright. He was never alright after I left him—”

“That sort of talk won’t do you any good now.”

“—And now he hates me.” Bofur’s voice wavered with more sorrow. “I can live with that. I really can, but now he won’t even be safe for it.”

Bilbo tensed. He wasn’t witnessing the aftermath of his lover crying this time; he was witnessing Bofur in the process of it. He wanted to flee from that phenomenon just as much as he wanted to quell it, and it took all the courage he had left in him to choose the latter. 

“He doesn’t hate you, Bofur,” he soothed. “You weren’t yourself back there. He’ll understand that. He’ll remember how good you were to him for all of those years and he’ll come around.”

This managed to calm Bofur for a moment. Seeing his chance, Bilbo carefully took the bottle from the dwarf’s hands and set it out of reach. Bofur watched the gesture dolefully.

“What did you tell him, to make him come back?” the toymaker asked.

Bilbo shrugged one shoulder. “I told him the truth, about how you feel. Thinking back on it, I admit it may not have been my place to tell him, but it was all I could say to stop him from leaving.”

“What did you say?”

“I said that you hadn’t meant to lash out at him, that you were only worried for him. I told him that you loved him like a son.”

Bofur clenched his eyes shut and let out a hissing, humorless laugh. His eyes opened again to resume staring at the wall.

“I left him,” he said in a ragged half-whisper. “He needed me, but he let me go because he felt guilty about keeping me in Erebor, and I was too...too _selfish_ to see that at the time. I should have stayed and looked after him, but instead I ran off and threw treasure at him on my way out the door. Then when I thought he might be in danger, I was too cowardly to look into it, and when he came to me and told me face to face what I couldn’t even ask in a letter...I frightened him. I _hurt_ him.”

His green eyes shimmered with a fresh glaze of tears. “What way is that to treat your son?”

He lowered his head to wipe the tears away. Bilbo watched him for a moment, horribly pained by his words, then reached out with one hand to lightly stroke his hair. Bofur shrank away from those caresses until the hobbit’s other hand came around to cradle his cheek. Bilbo carefully brushed the bangs from the dwarf’s eyes as he offered another thought.

“If it’s any comfort to know...you weren’t the only person you made happy by coming here.”

That was when Bofur completely broke. 

He didn’t say a word or make a sound. Not at first. He slowly leaned into Bilbo’s touch, then he tipped towards his smaller comforter until the side of his head was buried under the halfling’s chin. 

Bilbo readily accepted Bofur into his arms, rubbing his back and sprinkling gentle coos of “I love you” and “It’s alright” into that thick brown hair. When the dwarf’s silent shudders turned to sobs, the hobbit planted a kiss on the top of his head, and when the first wail softly escaped from Bofur’s lips, his lover began shushing and rocking him like a child of his own. 

All the while, Bilbo Baggins shed tears himself for knowing that his happiness of the past nineteen years had come at the cost of Ori’s, and now of Bofur’s as well. 

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Regarding Fíli and Kíli's ages -** Going by movie logic again, Fíli and Kíli are said to be the equivalent of twenty-five-year-olds, which for people who live about 250 years would put them in their sixties at the time of _The Hobbit_.


	18. Delaying Discussions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bilbo tries to keep Ori from leaving Bag End the next morning while also learning a few things from the young dwarf.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank everyone for all of the kudos you've given me for the past seventeen chapters, as well as for all of the views. I'm glad to see that people are still enjoying this story!

It was much to Bilbo’s sadness but not to his surprise that Ori woke up long before Bofur did the next morning. The younger dwarf maintained that he had to reach the Blue Mountains by that afternoon, and while a great many things had yet to be resolved between him and his former mentor, he couldn’t afford to wait until the toymaker finished sleeping off last night’s drink. The hobbit even tried unsuccessfully to wake his partner a few times as their guest readied himself to leave them. Ultimately, there was nothing Mr. Baggins could do except make his own peace with Ori and hope that it also bought Bofur enough time to come around.

Bilbo entered the guest room with permission shortly after sunrise to find Ori lacing up the last few pieces of his leather armor. The halfling didn’t come empty-handed. The scribe sent him an absent greeting glance and suddenly froze when he saw a familiar piece of paper in the host’s hands. 

It was the portrait he had sketched of the burglar and given to Bofur nineteen years ago.

Bilbo came forward and handed back the artist’s work with a look of bottomless remorse. The resignation that came over Ori’s face when he accepted it showed that he remembered the story behind the sketch. A few dismal beats passed as the halfling watched the lad gaze down at the rendering. 

“It was never my intention to come between the two of you,” Bilbo finally pushed out. “Ori, I’m so sorry. I swear, if I had heard any word that you were unhappy without him, I would have let him return. It would have pained me, but I never would have forced him to stay here at your expense.”

The dwarf looked up to show puzzlement through his glumness. “You wouldn’t have come back with him?”

Words failed the hobbit for a long time. It hadn’t occurred to him until then that his reluctance to return to Erebor had eluded Ori. Having revealed himself, there was nothing Bilbo could do but meekly own to his feelings. He hung his head with an awkward smile.

“I suppose I call it the ‘Lonely Mountain’ for a different reason than everyone else does.”

The other drooped, letting go of the matter. “Well, you don’t owe me an apology, Bilbo. You don’t owe me anything. You’ve already done more good for any dwarf than you needed to.”

This earned a stare from his host, which prompted Ori to step back and take a seat on his bed. He eyed his drawing reminiscently as he gathered his thoughts.

“It wasn’t sympathy from friends that helped me through my grief after that battle at Erebor. Not really.” He lifted his head to Bilbo. “It was my writing.”

The hobbit’s stare became a quizzical one, so Ori continued.

“Documenting everything about that dragon, Thorin, you, and the fighting gave me a chance to decide how I really felt about all of it. I could share my thoughts, sort of, without having them spun a certain way by someone listening. And then when I _did_ share them, when I finished my journal and made it available for reading, everyone read it.”

The corners of his lips rose timidly, and he looked to the sketch in his hands again. “Every dwarf in Erebor wanted to know the tale of how the great, noble Thorin Oakenshield fought his way to the mountain and rose above his grandfather’s vices to win back their home...and what they read was a tale about the humble, brave little hobbit who made all of that possible for him.”

Fear gripped Bilbo for an instant and made him lean back. He recalled Bofur mentioning years ago that the dwarves of Erebor had come to see him as a hero, a title that he had denounced, and he began to suspect that it was Ori who had painted him in that heroic light. The thought of himself being such a hallowed figure among Dain’s subjects concerned him more than the thought of being known as the thief who had failed Thorin; he might dash the hopes of an entire kingdom if they were to see how cowardly he had become since then.

Ori lifted his head again though, and the warmhearted expression that he showed quieted that fear. 

“So many people took something so special away from that story,” he said. “It made me glad that I wrote down what I thought about it, and that I was there to witness it in the first place, even if it hurt at the time.” 

He covered up a painful gleam and shrugged. “I wanted to make that difference again, so when Balin needed a scribe to go with him to Moria, I was quite ready for another adventure. I’m much happier writing in a mine about battles with goblins than sitting safe in a hole, thinking about all the good I’m not doing the world anymore.”

Having said that, Ori held the drawing out to Bilbo again. The hobbit accepted his portrait back with some difficulty. He scrutinized it once more while the lad resumed lacing up his armor, and Mr. Baggins wondered if his young guest had just sacked him over the head with a hint.

* * *

The pair was standing outside by Bag End’s front gate ten minutes later, still without Bofur. Try as he might, Bilbo couldn’t delay Ori with any more talk or convince him to stay for at least one breakfast, and so he was rather antsy as he watched the youngster open the gate and proceed to untie his pony from the fence. His curly head whipped back to the open front door, clinging to the hope that the older dwarf would come stumbling out of it, before he buckled and shared what was on his mind.

“Are you sure you have to leave so soon? Bofur might wake in a few hours.”

Ori’s fingers slipped on the reins, but he continued untying them. “I can’t stay any longer.”

“Ori, he truly is sorry for what happened last night. If you’re gone when he wakes, he’ll be devastated.”

The scribe quit fumbling with the reigns and lowered his arms. He was silent for a short while, and he kept his eyes away from Bilbo’s the entire time. The halfling could see the conflict glimmering in those honest brown orbs until Ori announced his decision. 

“It’s not my choice. They need me there. I have to go.”

Bilbo could see that it was the truth. However, he sensed that the deeply rattled youngster was leaning on his deadline to a degree to avoid Bofur. He knew better than to pass judgment on someone for having such a fear, but something fatherly stirred in him just then, and he wished to spare his friend from the lack of closure that he himself had suffered with for years because of one poor choice.

“Then what can I say to him for you?” he urged.

Silence gripped Ori again. The dwarf made the tiniest turn then and pressed his forehead into his pony’s long, gray main. He shook his head a few seconds later and let out a bitter little laugh.

“I can’t come up with one word,” he said weakly. He patted his satchel where he kept his journal, indicating the irony of that statement. “I need to think.”

Bilbo slouched. “Well, you’re welcome to write to us any time, and you will always be welcome to visit us.” 

He knew the second half of his offer couldn’t have sounded terribly enticing after what had become of last night’s visit. The hobbit wanted to issue that invitation all the same. He wanted to encourage Ori to come back someday, not just to send a note.

The dwarf accepted his offer with a somber nod, then held out a hand. “Thank you again, Bilbo—for everything.”

The halfling accepted his hand and shook it with heart. “You’re welcome.”

The youngster finished untying his pony after that and ascended to the saddle. Just like last time, he barely got the animal to take a step when Bilbo moved closer and reached up to him again. The hobbit’s fingers wound up on the very same mitten that they had just released seconds ago.

“Ori?” he called up with an earnest smile. “Do be careful. I know that you’re smart and that you can fend for yourself, but some of us are always going to remember that little dwarfling with the sweater and the slingshot.”

Ori gave his first genuinely happy smile of the morning. “I know.” He patted Bilbo’s hand and added, “Don’t worry.”

The halfling backed away then, stifling his gloom, and remained behind his fence while the scribe of Moria trotted his pony out the gate and took off galloping down the road to the West.

* * *

Exactly one hour passed from Ori’s departure to the time when Bilbo returned to his bedroom. The hobbit had spent that hour brooding at his diningroom table, the place where Bofur had lashed out at their companion, and fidgeting with his magic ring in his pocket to numb his woes. Whether it was his experience from the past month or just a lucky hunch, something told him exactly when to rise and go check on his partner.

Bofur groaned and dragged his head across his pillow the moment he heard Bilbo enter the bedroom. 

The smaller figure halted in the doorway when he saw that. Now that his dwarf _was_ awake, he wasn’t sure what he should do. He certainly didn’t have any good news to share, in spite of his efforts. 

Bofur stirred dizzily for a minute until he rolled his head into a position where he could see Bilbo directly. He cracked open his bloodshot eyes after that and squinted questioningly across the room at his Acorn. The despondent stare that greeted him back told him that Ori had already left.

Bilbo hurried to the bed when he saw his _Abanul_ crumbling again. 

Bofur had curled pitifully in on himself by then. No matter; the hobbit climbed onto the mattress beside him and lay down to cradle the other’s head to his chest again. He brought one hand up to stroke the dwarf’s hair, and he only moved closer when one of those large, trembling arms wrapped itself around his delicate frame.

Bilbo would never scold Bofur or speak to him with any rebuke about the incident with Ori. He would only treat his lover with tenderness when the subject came up. Bofur was obviously sorry and punishing himself enough, and after the emotional turmoil that he must have endured over his young friend in the past nineteen years, the hobbit didn’t dare let him have any regrets about his choice to stay in the Shire.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always felt that Bilbo and Ori in the movies had a lot in common, so I wanted to give this story the subtext that Bofur is fond of both of them because they remind him of each other. He obviously loves them in very different ways, though.


	19. Roads to Recovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bilbo does his best to help Bofur through his grief while slowly reacquainting with his own adventurous side.

It was inevitable that another change for the worse would befall Bofur after the morning that Ori took his leave, and while that change was very much what Bilbo had predicted it would be, the hobbit still wasn’t ready for it. Gone were the sounds of chatter and music, the smells of drink and tobacco smoke, and even the sight of an empty plate in front of the dwarf at the end of every meal. Bofur had lost his appetite for all of those indulgences, as well as his desire to craft items for his toyshop. About the only thing he did a decent amount of at home was sleep, or at least try to, and his hat hung forgotten on the headboard’s left post even when he wasn’t lying below it on the bed.

Bilbo felt as if his beloved partner had left him after all.

In spite of his depression, Bofur did have enough sense of duty left to attend the toyshop and engage his customers in conversation. The talks that Bilbo heard when he visited the establishment were usually short, but the bearded shopkeeper was as kind to those people as he was soft-spoken, especially when those people were children. His subdued but friendly demeanor reminded the hobbit more than a bit of a certain scribe.

The toyshop was the only place anyone could hope to find the dwarf outside of Bag End. It went without saying that he ceased his trips to the Ivy Bush Inn, along with every other tavern in town. He also no longer ran errands for Bilbo, as the halfling had learned from last time how dangerous it was to send Bofur wandering near his temptations when he was at a low point. 

Mr. Baggins did his best to be there for his lover. He showed Bofur the same support and compassion that the other had shown him in his worst times—affectionate gestures, pieces of songs that he hummed in the kitchen, even an innocent joke whenever he could think of one. As much as Bofur seemed to appreciate those efforts, none of them brought back the old rascal that he used to be.

Just like he had one month ago, Bilbo attempted to combat that dreariness by getting his housemate involved in things at home. That strategy proved even less successful on the second try. Precisely one day into his regiment of chores, Bofur came lurching in unexpectedly from the garden, sprinkling can still in hand, and went straight to the bedroom without a word. After failing to coax an explanation from him, the hobbit went outside and saw from the still-damp patches of soil that the dwarf had quit watering at the purple forget-me-nots. He later recalled the purple coat that Ori had worn at the start of their quest and came to guess that it was the younger dwarf’s favorite color.

The other chores on Bofur’s list didn’t do much more to draw him out of his shell. Before long, some of that misery spread to Bilbo as well, along with an overwhelming sense of helplessness. With no one else in Bag End for him to speak to, the halfling began spending more time alone with his ring. 

He didn’t spend nearly as much time with it as he had nineteen years ago, however. Time and experience had taught him the value of moderation, and he also suspected that the magic token was having another side effect on him besides aggression. Whenever he had the ring out of his pocket, he would feel his firm, youthful face and reflect on Gandalf’s comment about how strangely youthful it was.

Bilbo was contemplating this in the marketplace one afternoon, two weeks after Ori’s visit. His meditation was soon cut short when his ears caught the footsteps of two other hobbits trailing him through the crowd. His first thought, naturally, was that the Sackville-Bagginses were on his tail, and before he could slip away to perform his old disappearing act, the pair caught up to him.

He actually felt worse to discover that they weren’t Otho and Lobelia, but Pollo Foxburr and Wilibold Knotwise.

“Begging your pardon, Mr. Bilbo,” Pollo said when he saw his elder’s sour glare. “We didn’t mean to startle you. It’s just that we didn’t want to make a scene calling after you.”

Bilbo expertly covered up his glare, remembering that he wasn’t supposed to know about their exploitive dealings with Bofur. 

“Well then,” he played nice, “I suppose that was very thoughtful of you, young sirs. And to what do I owe my startling?”

Wilibold moved in. “We were just wondering about Bofur. He hasn’t come around for a while and we haven’t heard from him. Is he alright?”

Bilbo wavered slightly, and he actually thought for a moment that the two of them might really be concerned. “I’m afraid he hasn’t been feeling well as of late.”

“Oh, that’s a shame,” Wilibold said with a frown. “It hasn’t been very much fun without him at the Ivy Bush these last two weeks.”

Just like that, Bilbo went back to concealing his disgust. “How unfortunate that must be.”

“Will you tell him we asked about him?” Pollo implored eagerly. “Tell the old hair-chin we hope he gets well soon and that we’ll be waiting for him at that tavern like always when he’s feeling better.”

Mr. Baggins wiggled his nose to disguise a scowl. He had made up his mind right then and there that the two ne’er-do-wells speaking to him were the ones really responsible for Bofur’s outburst at Ori. He doubted very much that his dwarf would have helped himself to so much ale that night if Pollo and Wilibold hadn’t excessively fed his habit for the entire month leading up to it, and now the miscreants wanted to feed that habit some more.

The hobbit squared a firm jaw. “Don’t you worry. I’ll see to it that everything gets squared away.”

That night, after Bofur fell asleep, Bilbo slipped out of bed, dressed himself, and left their room with his hand in his pocket. He returned to bed within an hour, kissed Bofur, and drifted off to slumber holding his _Abanul_. 

The following morning, Hobbiton was rampant with rumors of a ghost in the Ivy Bush Inn that had snatched Pollo Foxburr and Wilibold Knotwise’s mugs from their hands and dumped their drinks on their petrified heads.

* * *

None of the superstitious whispers in town that day reached Bag End. Bilbo woke that morning to tranquility and security, still snuggled against Bofur with his arm around his bedmate. What made it all the more serene was that one of the toymaker’s strong arms had wound around his waist in turn during the night.

The feeling of waking to that closeness hearkened back to the earliest days of his courtship with the dwarf, when they hadn’t been able to resist curling up together in spite of their shyness. The halfling felt as safe and as right in that embrace now as he had back then, and he allowed himself to pretend just for a few minutes that they were still in those simple, innocent early days. It was in the midst of that wistful fantasy that he tilted his head up and discovered a wide-awake Bofur gazing right back at him.

Even with so much sadness in his eyes, the dwarf greeted his hobbit with a fragile smile. He moved closer then to touch his cheek to Bilbo’s, and the couple closed their eyes and held each other just a little tighter. They remained in that position, oblivious to everything else in the world, until nearly noon.

Lunch was quite meager by Shire reckoning. The only reason they prepared one at all was because they had skipped their breakfasts, and still neither of them had the appetite to eat everything in front of them. That frugality made doing the dishes afterwards a short process, which Bofur’s silent offer to help with made shorter yet.

The dwarf was returning the last few plates to the cupboard by the diningroom window when he just so happened to glance outside. Bilbo was emptying the kitchen sink with his back turned at the time, and so he never saw the look of shock that abruptly seized the taller figure. The halfling was unaware that anything had come over his partner at all until he heard Bofur loudly set down the plates and bolt from the room.

Bilbo spun around to see the mountaineer screech to a halt in the entrance hall and fling open the front door. The hobbit was about to rush after him through the parlor when curiosity made him stop to also peer out through the diningroom window. The same shock took hold of him when he saw what had spurred Bofur into action.

Standing on the road in front of Bag End, gawking up at the door with his pony by his side, was Ori.

By the time Bilbo made it to the door, Bofur and the younger dwarf were already whimpering apologies to each other in an iron embrace on the other side of the gate. 

The hobbit wobbled on his front step, overcome with relief and unsure of what he should do next. Deciding it best not to interfere, he settled for watching the reunited pair from afar. Bofur and Ori eventually quieted down, and the elder pulled back to cup the other’s chin. 

“Show me a smile, lad,” he pleaded through joyful tears.

The quivering beam that Ori gave him wasn’t picturesque, but it was still happy.

They turned to Bilbo after that and invited him over. The scribe stepped forward to meet him part of the way with another embrace, and somehow, the hobbit sensed from that greeting that he had been the one to bring Ori back. His invitation for the youngster to return hadn’t fallen on deaf ears, apparently.

“So how long do you plan to stay with us?” Bofur asked once the three of them were calm again.

Their guest slowed timidly as he tied his pony to the fence. “Not very long. My caravan’s heading east back to the Misty Mountains as we speak.”

“Back to Moria,” his mentor put a finer point on it.

Ori nodded somberly. 

Bilbo and Bofur shared a twinge of disappointment. They had both been hoping that their friend had returned to at least reconsider his choice. Seeing the resolve behind his nerves though, they resigned themselves. No one had any fight left in him anymore.

“You’re sure you know what you’re doing?” Bofur asked with a crack in his voice. “What you might be in for?”

“I’m sure,” was Ori’s soft reply.

“And you still want to see it through?”

“I do.”

The older dwarf slowly took hold of him again and brought their foreheads together. Bofur paused, then he said the only thing that he could say.

“Then I wish you all the luck in the world.”

Bilbo looked away with a smile to himself.

* * *

Ori had close to a day that he could stay with his friends, it turned out. His caravan, which had grown handsomely since its arrival at the Blue Mountains, planned to travel north around the Shire, and his decision to cut straight through the middle of it gave him plenty of time to spare before he would have to leave Bag End to rendezvous. He had also set aside more time by leaving the Blue Mountains much earlier than the rest of his company; two weeks of stewing in regrets had evidently taught him to put his duties second sometimes.

The meals that Bilbo and Bofur shared with him that afternoon and evening more than made up for the ones they had skipped that morning. Their festivities that evening, in contrast, were considerably tamer than last time; the three went to bed that night without a drop of ale in them. The next morning gave them just enough time for a single quick breakfast, and then Ori donned his armor and satchel once more to set out after his caravan.

He didn’t set out alone. Bilbo and Bofur wanted to make the most of their companion’s second visit, so they decided to see him off. For the first time in nineteen years, Bilbo Baggins took up his favorite walking stick again and went out his door for the closest thing to another adventure.

No one rode Ori’s pony during their journey across the Shire. The trio led the gray steed behind them while they walked in a row together, chatting among each other more or less at eye level the entire hike. The dwarves likely chose to venture on foot to prove their resilience to each other, but Bilbo kept away from the animal largely because of his allergies. That was the reason he gave, anyway—another part of him preferred to walk for old times’ sake, though that part didn’t quite feel like expressing itself to his travel mates.

Overall, the hobbit enjoyed the experience of getting out and traveling again. It was the beginning of September, and the trees that his group saw along the way had traces of red, orange, and gold threaded through their leaves. A few of those leaves had already fallen, appearing as tiny patches of warm color on the rolling green fields and winding brown roads. Some had even landed in the Water River, where Bilbo could watch the current carry them along over rocks and down hills. Memories of his company’s barrel ride from Mirkwood were inevitable but strangely pleasant as he savored that sight.

It was close to sundown when he, Bofur, and Ori reached the Old Forest in Buckland. They could see far to the north, as the trees were thin at that edge of the forest. That enabled them to see the long line of dwarf travelers on ponies stretched across the horizon in the distance.

“That’s them,” Ori said. He sounded a little reluctant.

Bilbo and Bofur turned to him with heavy hearts. “Then I guess this is where we part ways,” the latter responded.

Ori worked up another smile as he looked back and forth from Bofur to Bilbo. He went to the hobbit first, giving another embrace and a thank-you. He went to the older dwarf next, and it took them much longer to let go of each other.

“I hope you can visit again some day, lad,” Bofur murmured dotingly in his ear before they did. “I want you to show up on our doorstep with a big grin on your face and rub it in mine that you’re alright. I really do want that for you.”

“I’ll try,” Ori murmured back.

“And write another good story. I’ll be able to read it this time.”

The youth nodded, unable to speak for a moment. The two clung to each other in silence a little longer, then Bofur dropped his voice to a whisper to say something else.

“Never again. I swear to Mahal I’ll never touch another drop of that swill again.”

Bilbo looked away once more. He couldn’t tell if he was supposed to hear that promise, but his keen ears picked it up anyway. He did his best not to eavesdrop on the dwarves’ next whispers as they gave each other another squeeze.

“Thank you for everything, Bofur,” Ori said.

Bofur patted his back reassuringly. “Thank _you_ , Ori.”

It was the closest thing to a good-bye that either could bear to give. They finally released each other, and with a last smile to Bilbo, the smaller dwarf climbed onto his pony and trotted away in pursuit of the caravan. Bofur stood perfectly still and watched with a bittersweet expression as his young friend passed beyond the line of the trees and faded from view into the horizon.

As always, Bilbo was there for him. The halfling took his partner’s larger hand in his and only held it tighter as it grew more and more difficult to see Ori. He peeked up at Bofur a few times, and a pinch of curiosity made him wonder if his love was singing “The Farewell Cup” in his head again.

They let go of each other’s hands when the last of the caravan left their view. When the sky began to turn yellow from the approaching sunset, they turned and headed back west. By then, Mr. Baggins had made up his mind about something very important and knew what he should do. 

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't end on TOO much of a down note with Ori. Like Bilbo said: "Some of us are always going to remember that little dwarfling with the sweater and the slingshot."
> 
> And can we agree that there is no force in all of Arda that can defeat that of Sassy Bilbo?
> 
> UPDATE: You might have noticed a change in one of the characters' names recently. I forgot that I changed Pogo Foxburr's name to Pollo Foxburr during the writing process and his name still said Pogo in my outline, so that made for a lovely continuity error. I believe I've fully corrected that now.


	20. The Best and Worst of Times

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bilbo surprises Bofur with a wonderful offer, but a sudden misfortune cuts their happiness short.

Bilbo bided his time before sharing his decision with Bofur. The two of them spent that night at an inn in Buckland and returned to Hobbiton the next afternoon. It was that evening, after they had finished eating a curiously large dinner prepared by the hobbit, that Mr. Baggins sat down beside the dwarf and took his partner’s hand to make his pitch.

“Bofur?” he began with loving eyes. “My _Abanul_...I think we are both ready to see the mountain again.”

Bofur’s wary look gave way to a stunned one. 

He shook his head suddenly to clear it. “Wait. Which mountain do you mean?”

Bilbo couldn’t keep in his flutter of laughter. “The Lonely Mountain. Erebor.” He calmed himself to speak more earnestly. “I think we should return to it.”

The other didn’t shed his stunned look, so the halfling explained himself. 

“It’s been almost thirty years, and a lot of things have changed. You’ve been so good and so devoted to stay here with me, and since our twentieth anniversary will be here in two months, it’s time I showed you the same devotion. I want you to see your family and all of our old friends again.” 

He leaned in and enticed, “We could even pass through Moria on the way to see Ori, Balin, and Óin.”

Bofur still needed some time before he could give the proper reaction. He was hearing words that he had come to never expect from Bilbo, and he wasn’t sure if they were real. The dwarf worked his jaw uselessly for a few seconds in an effort to respond.

“You really mean that?” His voice was unsteady. “You really want to go back?”

“I do.”

“Just for a holiday, right? Not to stay there.”

Bilbo gave a light shrug. “That’s a matter we can discuss.”

Bofur went very still at that, fearing that he might fall out of his chair if he moved. “But _this_ is your home, Bilbo.”

One of the halfling’s hands came to rest on the toymaker’s cheek.

“My home is where you are,” Bilbo said with conviction, “and it’s _my_ turn to make _you_ happy. The place where you would be happiest is the place I would call home.”

The proper reaction finally came to Bofur. He was so overjoyed that he had to clap his free hand over his mouth to keep from erupting with giddiness. His green eyes were already glittering as they fixed on his sweetheart.

“Oh, Bilbo..." he said through his fingers, "...Do you still think those hobbit feet can handle such a long walk?”

“I’m sure they can,” the smaller figure joked back excitedly. “If not, I know how much you fancy picking me up.”

As if to prove that, the dwarf swept the startled halfling into his lap with an elated squeak and wrapped him in his arms for a deep, firm kiss. Bilbo held Bofur and kissed him in turn when his wits caught up. The couple seemed as if they might kiss each other all the way down to the diningroom floor, but they regained control of themselves and settled for trading gleeful murmurs in between more kisses. There was many an utter of “Acorn” and “ _Abanul_ ” and many more of “love” throughout their doting verbal collage.

Eventually, Bofur calmed down enough to remember the situation at hand. “We should do the dishes before we forget, shouldn’t we?”

Bilbo cuddled closer in his lover’s lap. “Oh, leave them sit.” 

Indeed, a lot of things had changed over the years.

* * *

They did discuss the nature of their return to Erebor. After the pair finished showing their grateful affection for each other that night, they sat smoking their pipes in bed while they talked. The decision they arrived at was that their visit would only be a holiday, but a very long one, and probably not their last.

The arrangements that they made for Bag End were much the same as those Bilbo had made for his last attempt to leave the Shire. Drogo would look after the house while Hamfast would tend to the garden, and everyone else was to assume that Mr. Baggins would return to his dwelling alive and well in two years.

Arrangements for Bofur’s toyshop posed somewhat more of a challenge. For as many crafters and businessmen as there existed in Hobbiton, few hobbits were both, and very few of those who were could be trusted to run the shop in the dwarf’s absence. Ultimately, and reluctantly, Bofur opted to close it until his return. He would need time to replenish his stock anyway after his unproductive past six weeks.

Everything was placed in order within a month of Bilbo suggesting the trip. In the meantime, both he and his housemate seemed much happier among the other Shirefolk. They no longer felt bound to the Shire, which made them feel free to enjoy their time in it while they awaited their departure. That enjoyment perhaps was one of the reasons it took them as long as it did to make their arrangements.

Another reason was the birth of Hamfast and Bell’s son Samwise during that month. In the course of one laborious afternoon, Hamfast had gone from quoting his “gaffer” to being a “gaffer” himself. Bofur had known for some time prior to Samwise’s birth that the once baffling term meant “old man,” or “father.”

The tow-headed infant was undeniably a Gamgee, the way he quietly minded everyone from his crib and went about his business with little fuss. He didn’t seem to know what to make of Bofur, but he liked Bilbo, and that was plenty for the dwarf. The only stranger to garner little Sam’s full attention was Frodo, who was noticeably smaller and more personable to him than the rest of his visitors. 

Drogo’s family was another reason why the Bag End duo didn’t hurry to set out on their journey. Bilbo and Bofur didn’t have to hide their courtship around the other couple anymore, at least not in the privacy of Drogo and Primula’s home, and that openness made the four of them all the more thrilled to spend time together. It also gave them the benefit of being able to swap some helpful advice with the equally mismatched pair.

“So how do the two of you make a relationship like yours work so well?” Drogo asked his cousin and the dwarf in his den one night.

Bilbo had to think for a while. “Well, I suppose the trick is to assume we have nothing in common...”

“So to speak,” Bofur interjected.

“...And to make it as few people's business as possible,” Bilbo proceeded with a twinkle in his eye, “excepting a few trustworthy friends.”

“How do the two of _you_ make it work so well?" Bofur asked Drogo and Primula then.

It was Primula who answered, glancing proudly at Frodo as he played in the next room. “I would say by always sharing at least one very important goal.”

There were a few occasions where the two couples went to the Green Dragon together. True to his promise, Bofur refrained from drinking on those outings. He also kept away from the ale and wine at home, even when Bilbo had company over. Neither of them was sure how to explain this change in taste, as the dwarf still wasn’t ready to speak of Ori to anyone else. “Fortunately” for him, his late-night binges at the Ivy Bush were so infamous that it surprised no one to see him abstaining from beverages of that nature now.

Despite his determination, Bofur felt the loss of his drinks. He made up for that craving by smoking more pipe weed; a thick gray cloud was seldom seen far from his head in that month. The smell was questionable, and he developed a bit of a cough from his increased habit, though his head and his temper stayed leveled. It made his nights alone with Bilbo somewhat less romantic, but Bofur could usually charm his hobbit into bed when the mood was ripe enough. Knowing that their holiday lay just around the corner made that mood especially ripe.

It was the morning after one of those romantic nights, the twenty-fourth morning in September, when the toymaker saw fit to pack for the journey. The life-long procrastinator impressed himself for wanting to do it a full week prior to their planned departure. Granted, Bilbo had finished packing a full week earlier than him and had dropped him several reminders to do the same, but the fact that Bofur had followed suit with any time to spare was a massive sign of improvement.

The dwarf clomped down the hallway in his old boots after he finished packing. He was looking for Bilbo to show off his recovered footwear. When he found no trace of the hobbit in the kitchen, the diningroom, or the pantry, he forgot his silliness for a moment to conduct a search throughout the house. That search brought Bofur to the front door, where he stopped.

Bilbo was slouched on the bench in his garden with his back turned. Hamfast stood facing the older hobbit, clearly in the middle of telling him something. The gardener was holding his floppy work hat to his chest, and when he saw Bofur in the corner of his eye, he looked up with a devastated expression that the mountaineer never would have thought possible of him.

On the bench, Bilbo kept his back turned and his face hidden.

* * *

There had been no good way for Hamfast to break the news of Drogo and Primula’s deaths, but he had broken it with all the sensitivity that he could muster. It had happened just last night, and a neighbor had discovered the couple that morning. They had both been found floating in the pond behind their house alongside Drogo’s overturned boat.

Frodo, by the grace of Eru, had not been with his parents at the time of the accident. The fauntling had been sleeping safe and sound in his bed when they had gone boating for the night. Hamfast couldn’t say what the lad had seen that morning or how he fared at the moment. The only thing known for certain was that Primula’s brother Rorimac and his wife were already on their way from Buckland to claim his orphaned nephew.

Bilbo and Bofur appeared as lifeless as the deceased at the burial that evening. It was the second time in both of their lives that they were forced to see such good friends laid out still and silent too soon. The service was held near Drogo and Primula’s home, on a hillside overlooking their pond, and the Bag End duo stood side by side before the caskets with the rest of the chief mourners.

Frodo was also among those mourners, as was Rorimac. The stone-faced Brandybuck held the lad up to his hip in one arm while the other hand kept Frodo mostly turned away from the caskets. Bofur stood on Rorimac’s other side with a consoling hand on Bilbo’s shoulder. None of the four spoke, not even after Drogo’s sister Dora Baggins finished giving her eulogy. They continued holding their tongues out of sorrow and respect as the caskets were then closed, covered in flowers, and lowered into their graves in the last light of the setting sun.

The only thing worse than the silence before and beside Bilbo was the whispering behind him. Nothing was sacred to those other visitors; he heard them comment on everything from the questionable way that his dwarf friend was touching him to the way that last night’s tragedy might have occurred. He very nearly doubled over in grief when he heard someone at the gathering’s far end suggest that Primula had pushed Drogo overboard on purpose only to have him drag her down with him.

Bilbo and Bofur’s silence stayed with them well after they returned to their own home that night. They each knew that their holiday to Erebor would have to be called off, not only because all of their arrangements with Drogo were no more, but also because they understood how wrong it would be to flee from their pain so soon and leave the rest of their friends behind to suffer in the Shire. It would be no different than the way Bilbo had deserted his dwarf friends at the Lonely Mountain in the aftermath of Thorin’s funeral.

He and Bofur also decided not to drown their sadness with each other as they had tried to on Bilbo’s last night in Erebor. They had an unspoken agreement that their lovemaking should only be for joyful occasions. The likelihood that they had been engaged in the act without a care while Drogo and Primula were drowning further shamed them from considering it tonight.

They instead sat quietly together on their bed. Bofur was slumped back against the headboard with Bilbo cradled securely in his lap. If only the hobbit could feel so secure; the bitter sting of death had found its way back to him, this time in the one place where he had thought himself safe from it, and it had robbed him and his beloved of all the joy that he had tried to create for them. Now he felt as if neither of them would ever know safety or joy again. He could only rest the side of his head against his dwarf’s chest and stare into nothingness as he dwelled on that belief. 

Bilbo’s sole comfort right then was the sound of Bofur’s heartbeat. That calm, muffled rhythm against his ear combined with the rise and fall of the other’s chest was just the mindless distraction that he needed to numb him, and he soon came to focus on nothing else. 

He grew so focused on the sound that it seemed to grow louder and heavier with each beat. Before long, his entire head was echoing with the pound of that hammering pulse, and he felt an overwhelming urge to reach into his pocket and touch his gold ring. That would surely numb his pain even more.

This urge suddenly left him when he felt Bofur’s arms pull him closer. Bilbo stiffened at the sensation, though not enough for his partner to notice. He eased back into that shielding embrace a second later, and while he knew that he had done nothing wrong this time, his chest tightened with guilt anyway.

He knew exactly what Bofur was thinking about.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry to give this chapter such a depressing ending, but we all knew that something had to happen to Drogo and Primula sooner or later. Chapter 21 will deal with the aftermath of their deaths, then something happier will come along. 
> 
> I promise. :)


	21. Taking A Chance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bilbo thinks of another way for the couple to find happiness after their loss, but he has to convince Bofur to pursue it with him.

Bilbo waited considerably less time to share what was on his mind this time. That swiftness wasn’t because he believed Bofur would like to hear his thought, which he knew the dwarf wouldn’t, but because he simply didn’t have the strength to keep it contained. It slipped from the hobbit’s mouth the very next morning while he and Bofur were trying to eat their first and only breakfast in the diningroom.

“Bofur?” he asked weakly. 

The other quit prodding his food, but kept his listless gaze lowered.

Bilbo swallowed a lump in his throat. “What will you do when I’m...gone?”

It was a very long time before his partner moved again, let alone answered.

“Well, you’re only going to the market,” Bofur chirped, looking up. “I think I can manage on my own for a couple of hours this afternoon.”

Bilbo could tell that the toymaker was only pretending to misunderstand him. He supposed it served him right for asking something so awful. The halfing gave a clumsy smile and a nod before returning to his mushrooms and sausage. Neither of them said another word for the rest of the meal.

The question haunted Mr. Baggins for most of the day, including his two hours in the market. It wasn’t until that evening, when he took up the dreary task of unpacking his bag from their canceled holiday, that something occurred to him. As he was nudging his way through all of the clothes in his bedroom wardrobe, he happened across a wooden toy on Bofur’s side. It was a small string puppet in the shape of an eagle with wings that could flap, and a tag on one of its controls was inscribed with Frodo’s name. 

Bofur had made it as a going away present for the lad.

The sight of it brought Bilbo to tears at first. Once he calmed down though, he began to think, and a magnificent idea came to him.

* * *

Rorimac and his wife had taken Frodo back with them to Buckland that same day. The four-year-old would be among many relatives in his uncle’s home of Brandy Hall, but all the familiarities of Hobbiton and the Baggins family had been left far behind him. It was Bilbo’s belief that such a drastic change in the wake of such loss might do the boy more harm than good. He also knew from his own experience how damaging it could be down the road to hide from a tragedy, and who better to help dear Frodo face it than another hobbit who knew how it felt? With these thoughts set in his head, Bilbo spent the rest of the night contemplating what actions he would have to take.

If all went accordingly, Frodo would be living under Bag End’s roof within a month.

Bilbo had two other reasons for wanting to adopt the fauntling. One of those reasons, as loath as he was to have it, was to keep his home out of the Sackville-Baggins’s hands for good. Bofur couldn’t become his beneficiary now even if the dwarf wanted to, but Frodo would most certainly be recognized as an heir apparent. 

His final reason was because he wanted Bofur to have a child. 

If there was ever anyone who _needed_ to be a father, it was his partner. It was in the dwarf’s blood to care for and defend those younger than himself, and he clearly still pined for redemption after his incident with Ori. What was more, Bilbo wanted there to remain a hobbit in Bofur’s life who would bring him joy and love and remind him of his Acorn after time took away the former burglar. It was the only way Mr. Baggins could give his dearest a little one of his own, and this was likely the only chance he would ever get to do it.

He told Bofur all of this the next day, sitting with him in front of the den’s fireplace. The larger figure was silent through most of the explanation. By the end of it, he was turned aside and leaning back against the bricks in mournful bafflement.

“Do you really think we should take that chance?” he rasped after a while.

Concern and disbelief drew Bilbo to his side again. “Of course we should. Bofur, this is Frodo. Your little Pinecone. The boy that you’ve watched grow and helped to raise ever since he was born.”

“I know,” the other strained even harder to say.

Bilbo paused to study the dwarf, then he raised a hand and ran soothing fingers through Bofur’s hair. 

“You have to forgive yourself for what happened with Ori,” the hobbit said. “Yes, you have made mistakes in the past. Both of us have, but we’ve both learned from them. You’ve changed for the better, Bofur, and you deserve to be rewarded for that.”

An unsteady breath from the other threw Bilbo off for a moment. His fingers never stopped brushing that thick hair, though.

“I know you can handle this responsibility,” he pressed on, “and you love Frodo, don’t you?”

Bofur nodded.

Bilbo wet his lips, preparing himself. “You took another big chance once to grow closer to someone that you cared for. Someone else that you were afraid of hurting. Now, almost twenty years later, this is where taking that chance has brought you. If that means as much to you as I think it does, then please consider what I’m suggesting.”

It was another while before Bofur responded. The toymaker reached up, taking hold of Bilbo’s hand, and slowly brought it down to hold to his chest. He stroked it with his own larger fingers, appreciative and apologetic all at once. The hobbit was beginning to worry when the dwarf broke his silence.

“We can’t take Frodo to Erebor. He’s far too young for a journey like that.”

Bilbo stiffened as the Oliphant in the room was addressed. 

“For now, he is,” he admitted.

Bofur sighed and hung his head.

“Then we are gonna have to do _so much_ cleaning up around here,” he suddenly deadpanned.

He revealed a smile then, and Bilbo burst out laughing in relief until those strong arms pulled the halfling into an embrace.

* * *

Approaching Rorimac with the request to adopt Frodo was no easy task. Bilbo decided to broach the subject first with a letter, which he painstakingly composed himself. The years had made Primula’s brother no fonder of dwarves, and since Mr. Baggins was more familiar with him and more tactful with words than Bofur, he asked his partner to leave the writing to him.

The reply that came back from Brandy Hall one week later wasn’t quite so sensitive. News of Bofur’s drunken jaunts must have reached Buckland rather efficiently, because Rorimac seemed to know more of the details than even the dwarf did. He cited these episodes, as well as the Incident at the Door, the Secret Tops, and the Potato Trade that Primula had been dragged into, as evidence that the mountain-dweller would set a horrendous example for any child. He wasn’t much kinder to Bilbo, the “flighty adventurer” who was so glad to tolerate such a dodgy character. 

It was the first time that the hobbit actually regretted teaching Bofur how to read.

Still, Mr. Baggins was persistant. He sent out an even more carefully phrased letter three days later, conceding all of the mistakes that he and his “friend” had made in the past and explaining what they had done to ensure that those mistakes would not be made again. He was just daring enough to mention at the letter’s end how helpful Bofur had been to Drogo and Primula in raising their son and how highly the late couple had thought of him for it.

One more week later, on October the sixteenth, another written response came to Bag End—asking to speak with the dwarf in person at Brandy Hall on the twenty-third.

That was when the real preparations began. It wouldn’t be enough for Bofur to show up at Rorimac’s home making vows to be an upstanding Shireling; he would have to look the part as much as speak it. After mailing his agreement on the meeting back to Buckland, a heavy-hearted Bilbo set to work turning his dwarf into a halfling.

The hat was the first thing to go. As happily reacquainted with it as Bofur was, the threadbare accessory would do him no favors in Rorimac’s eyes. The toymaker also had to part with much of his hair as Bilbo trimmed it down to the length of a hobbit gentleman’s. His beard and mustache were mostly cut as well, although the couple decided to leave the foundations of both on his face. They still wanted Frodo to recognize him, after all.

Bofur weathered his transformation as graciously as anyone in his position could. He kept his gaze fixed on the bathroom wall from the moment the scissors appeared until it was finished, and when he first saw himself in the mirror, he mused about how nice it would be to eat soup without any of his hair dipping into the bowl for once. 

It wasn’t until the morning of the twenty-third, when he felt his partner touch his courting braid, that he started to resist. Bofur sat up straight from buttoning his waistcoat at the foot of the bed and gently seized Bilbo’s wrist, showing the most woefully pleading eyes that the hobbit had ever seen.

“It’s just for today,” Bilbo begged out loud, “and then I’ll put it right back in. I promise. Taking it out won’t mean I don’t love you anymore. Please, Bofur. It’s for Frodo.”

The dwarf sadly resigned. After Bilbo undid the braid, removed the blue and red threads that he had woven into it, and cut the cherished tress to the same length as the rest of his lover’s hair, he kissed the spot where it had been. Bofur did the same to the halfling’s braid next, albeit at a snail’s pace, just to show that he understood. They finished by removing their “matching” tokens and setting the acorn pin and the stone pendant together on the nightstand.

Bilbo hated to strip Bofur of his culture that way. They had both known from the beginning that courting in the Shire might lead to that some day, but to have it happen so quickly cut the hobbit just as deeply, especially when the mountaineer had been so close to reuniting with his own kind just a few weeks ago. Still, it had to be done, and if it paid off, it would be more than worthwhile.

Mr. Baggins clung to this hope throughout the morning as they finished preparing to leave for Buckland. They were just about to open the front door to set out when Bofur stopped the smaller being and came to hold him lightly by his elbows. There they stood in the middle of the entrance hall, the same place where the dwarf had first met Frodo’s father, until Bofur found the strength to share what he had to say. 

“I want you to know I’m sorry for how I’ve been these past few months,” he explained with a labored smile. “How I was before...well, all of this. Bilbo, if the worst should happen today...if my reputation makes a mess of things...it’ll be my fault, not yours. I don’t want you feeling guilty for all the times I wouldn’t let you rein me in.” 

The hobbit reached up with an easier smile and took his dear one’s head in his hands. 

“And I want _you_ to know,” he said back, “that no matter what happens today, no matter what Rorimac or anyone else in that house says...you are good, Bofur, and you deserve to be happy.”

The declaration, so simple and so familiar, turned the dwarf’s heart to putty. His grin relaxed and then grew, becoming genuine, and his eyes shined proudly even as they weakened. It was very different from the way he had shown his joy at the proposal to return to Erebor, though it was no less.

“How about that?” he half-whispered. “My little Acorn’s grown into a tree.”

They drew each other closer for a chaste but momentous kiss. When they were done, they let go of each other, putting a friendly distance between them, and took up their walking sticks. Bilbo finally pulled open the door, and the Bag End duo emerged from their home for what would be, with any luck, their last time as a family of two.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A much shorter chapter than I should have after so many days, but things have been hectic this week. I'll try to get through the next chapter more quickly.
> 
> I was having trouble picturing Bofur with shorter hair and less facial hair while writing this until I remembered that he would probably look like James Nesbitt. :P
> 
> Stay tuned for the meeting with Rorimac...


	22. Bravery in Brandy Hall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rorimac confronts Bofur and Bilbo about their questionable pasts, and the couple does their best to help each other through reliving those memories.

The hike from Hobbiton to Buckland went much faster for the couple that day than it had when Ori had been with them. Bilbo and Bofur were eager to reach their destination this time instead of reluctant, and that anticipation gave them an extra burst of speed. The sun was only creeping towards the western horizon in its six o’clock position when they arrived at the hill of Brandy Hall.

Rorimac opened one of the dwelling’s many doors before his guests even began debating which one to knock at. A medium-built hobbit in his late sixties, the Brandybuck looked like one who had lived longer and seen a great deal more in his life than Bilbo had, despite the opposite being true. Streaks of gray ran through his dark blonde curls, hauntingly close in color to Primula’s hair, and each of his midnight-blue eyes was set within a deep ring of wrinkles. He obviously hadn’t taken kindly to what he had seen of life in the past few weeks, though he was gracious enough to his guests as he led them inside.

Brandy Hall’s interior was every bit as lavish and inviting as Bag End’s. That was the extent of their similarities; while Bilbo’s home was that of a Shireling from the woods and fields, Rorimac’s home was plainly that of folk from the river. Cool blues and greens replaced the warm earth tones of Hobbiton’s residencies, and in all of the places where Bag End would have been made of hardened clay bricks, Brandy Hall was made of smooth gray stones. Its wooden furniture swirled with wavy patterns and the likenesses of fish and long-necked water birds, and its tall, arching doorways were framed with carvings of dangling willow branches. The flowers that could be seen in the house were the lilies, cattails, and marigolds of the Brandywine’s banks rather than the variety found farther inland.

Bilbo and Bofur saw nothing of Frodo as they walked through the house. Rorimac guided them straight back from the entrance hall to the smoking den without encountering any of his relatives who shared his home, perhaps by design. Once the three of them were in the smoking den, he directed his visitors to a pair of wooden chairs that he had no doubt placed in the center of the room for them.

Taking his seat in his armchair across from the duo, the Master of Brandy Hall set his bitter gaze on the dwarf and commenced their meeting.

“This is a new leaf that you’ve turned over, I suppose,” he mused dully, gesturing to Bofur’s altered appearance.

The toymaker scratched his shorter hair out of habit. “That’s my intention.”

Rorimac paused, not so impressed by the sheepish reply. Bofur was quick to change the topic. 

“How’s Frodo?” he asked.

The host became somber for a second. “Frodo is as well as he can be.”

He, Bofur, and Bilbo went quiet all together as they considered this sad thought. Rorimac soon broke that quietness and proceeded with a blunt tone.

“It’s because of Primula that you are here tonight, Master Dwarf. My sister always spoke highly of you to me, so I shall speak with you now. Since I’m quite familiar with the nature of gossip, I shall give you the benefit of a doubt this one time. I want you to tell me the truth about the stories I’ve heard concerning you, and today alone, if I see nothing suspicious, I shall believe what you say. Do I make myself clear?”

Bofur automatically looked to Bilbo.

“Look at me when I’m speaking to you,” Rorimac interrupted. 

The mountaineer obeyed with a rigid posture.

“Do I make myself clear?” his questioner repeated.

“You do,” he answered.

“Good. I’ll begin with your drinking. There seem fewer stars in the sky than there are tales of the ways you’ve made a fool of yourself with those tavern beverages. Barely a day went by in August without one of those tales making its way to my home, but now, none do. Has that problem been seen to?”

“It has,” Bofur confirmed dully. “I promised at the start of September that I wouldn’t drink again, and I’ve held to that.”

“Have you ever ‘promised’ to quit before?”

“I haven’t. I don’t give my word often, but when I _do_ give it, I mean it.” 

“Very well,” Rorimac said, moving on. “We’ll discuss the Incident at the Door next. Is it true that when you greeted Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, you were undressed?”

“It’s true, but I had myself covered.”

“So you were aware that she might find your state at the time objectionable.”

“I was.”

“And why were you undressed?”

Bofur’s head began to swivel towards Bilbo again.

“Look at me,” Rorimac reminded him steadily.

After regaining his subject’s attention, the halfling continued for him. “The story I’ve heard goes that you were preparing for a bath when Lobelia came to the door. That isn’t the truth though, is it?” His tone conveyed how well he knew the answer to his question.

“No, it isn’t,” Bofur responded following a shaky breath.

“Then what is?”

“I was...sleeping that way. I got out of bed and went right to the door when I heard her calling. It was early in the morning. She had been bothering us all week at the worst times.”

“So you intended to get rid of her, is that it?”

“Yes.”

The Brandybuck seemed to contemplate this. “And if you were to have a child living under that hill with you, is there any chance of that behavior being repeated?”

“No chance.” 

Rorimac bobbed his head sharply. He wasn’t so much taking Bofur’s word as he was instilling in the dwarf to conduct himself more appropriately in the future. Bilbo found it conspicuous that their host didn’t ask _why_ the larger figure had been sleeping without any clothes on that day, although he knew better than to complain about that.

“And the next day’s incident with the Foxburr and Knotwise lads,” Rorimac went on, “where you ‘accidentally’ doused them through the window. That was to get rid of _them_ as well, was it not?”

Bilbo was the one who answered. “It was, except I was the one to do it. Not him.”

The younger hobbit’s eyes shifted in cold surprise to Mr. Baggins. “I see. And which of you was responsible for the Potato Trade incident in the marketplace, or were both of you behind that?”

“I was the one behind it,” Bofur took over again. 

“And what brought it on, might I ask?”

The taller being fidgeted. “Bilbo was teaching me how to read, and I didn’t care to learn at the time. He wrote a song as a bit of incentive for me, but I was so impatient to know how it went that I...well, I bribed some of the locals to read it for me.”

Bilbo squirmed in the next chair over. The regret seeping into Bofur’s voice made the hobbit want to place a hand on his partner’s shoulder, to show him support as this interrogation grew more and more intense. He wanted to remind his lover in some way that he was good, but any sign of intimacy in front of the Brandybuck could undo everything he and Bofur had done to get this far.

Rorimac seemed oblivious to this whole dilemma. “You picked a rather strange thing to bribe them with,” he noted to Bofur.

“I thought there’d be no harm in handing out a few potatoes,” the dwarf offered.

“Nor in presenting yourself as a vagabond that my sister had to rescue.”

A wave of grief passed through Bofur’s eyes. “I swear, I never meant any shame on her.”

“What you meant is not what Hobbiton spoke of that day.” 

“Well, I am truly sorry.”

Rorimac must have sensed that he was going too far as well, because his voice became much calmer after another pause. “It’s my understanding that you now own a business. A toyshop.”

“That’s right.”

“So you are in fact literate now.”

“Yes. I came to my senses and decided I wanted to be educated.”

“This was after the incident with the Secret Tops, I presume.”

Bofur nodded, his discomfort only growing. Bilbo especially had to fight the urge to comfort him when Rorimac ordered the dwarf to explain the incident and he heard how thick his _Abanul_ ’s voice had become.

“I was trying to set things right after what I’d done in the marketplace,” Bofur said. “Children kept passing by Bag End to see the ‘giant’ dwarf who lived there, so I kept giving them little keepsakes for their curiosity.”

“You also spoke with them, correct?” 

“I did, but it was only innocent talk.”

“You never had any ill intentions for any of them?”

“Never.”

“So why wouldn’t the children tell anyone about those ‘little keepsakes’ that you gave to them?”

The toymaker swallowed hard. “Because I said there was no need for Bilbo to know about them, and the children thought I meant to keep them a secret from everyone.”

“I pushed him to it,” Bilbo interjected again. His tone was even flatter and heavier than Bofur’s. “In those days, I overreacted to every little disturbance that came into the bubble I had built around myself. I would have kept secrets from me too if I’d thought they were harmless ones.”

Rorimac finally turned from Bofur to fix his sights on his new subject. “And how do you react to disturbances _these_ days, Mr. Baggins?”

“In stride, or so I try to.”

“Trying is not so compelling as doing. I wouldn’t be keen to place my nephew in the care of someone who can only try to raise him.”

Bofur was the one struggling not to reach out to Bilbo this time. The dwarf thought for sure that such a statement was conjuring painful memories of Thorin, Fíli, and Kíli in his hobbit’s head. Those indeed were the memories haunting Mr. Baggins right then, but the former burglar endured them long enough to find his voice one more time.

“Try is the best that any parent or guardian can do.”

Rorimac stared at him for a beat. “I wish to know the nature of this ‘adventure’ that took you from the Shire thirty years ago.”

Bilbo averted his eyes.

“Look at me,” the other said once more.

“It’s not an easy story for him to tell,” Bofur said softly. “It didn’t end as well as our company had hoped going into it.”

“Will _you_ tell the story then?”

The scruffier fellow hesitated. He didn’t want to hurt Bilbo, not even if it could mean helping Frodo. It wasn’t until Bilbo gave him a stiff nod of permission in the corner of his eye that the dwarf was able to gather his courage and grant Rorimac’s request.

He told as much of the quest to Erebor as he could. It was a very different account from Bilbo’s, since the couple had gotten separated so many times over the course of their journey, and it was thankfully a lot shorter. Bofur was careful while speaking of the times when they had spent it together, not wanting to reveal his true feelings for Bilbo either, and the hobbit tried to lose himself in the patterns of the den's throw rug as the story turned fleetingly to death and loss in its final part. 

Rorimac listened to every word with an unreadable expression. When the tale ended with Thorin’s funeral and Bilbo’s departure from Erebor—with no mention of anything in between—the master of the hall sustained his thoughtful silence for another minute. Just as his guests were ready to erupt from the suspense, he shared his thoughts.

“You and Mr. Baggins are very protective of each other,” he observed, both from the story and from the duo’s actions leading up to its telling. “It’s uncommon, I think, for dwarves to care for those not of their kin, let alone those not of their kind.”

“It’s not so uncommon,” the mountaineer said humbly. “Not many of us have large families, and people who travel as much as we do run into those not of our kind all the time.”

Bilbo shifted his eyes toward Rorimac. It wasn’t the first time he had heard Bofur speak to another hobbit about dwarves having little family. As he perused the Brandybuck’s stoic features, he began to wonder if his host recognized the toymaker’s words as much as he himself did. 

“And you would be that loyal to them if you formed a bond with them?” Rorimac asked.

“I would,” Bofur vowed. “I’d look after them and keep them safe like they _were_ my kin.”

“Because bonds in a family are stronger than blood,” the interrogator finished, assessing the dwarf more deeply.

Bilbo was stunned. He knew then it was no coincidence that the last person to hear Bofur speak of such things had been the Brandybuck’s brother-in-law. The only question left in his mind was how much of a part that fateful walk home from the Ivy Bush Inn had played in the arrangements for today’s meeting.

Bofur didn’t seem as familiar with the phrase. That was no surprise, since his mind had been cloudy with ale when he had said it to Drogo. “That’s right.” 

Rorimac looked back and forth from him to Bilbo for what felt like ages. The blonde halfling was undeniably turning over something immense in his head as he scrutinized the duo, though what it was would forever be a mystery to them. When he seemed to reach a conclusion about it, he turned his head ever so slightly to the doorway on his left.

“Menegilda,” he called.

At the sound of her name, his wife stepped through the doorway and into the den. She didn’t enter the room alone. A very quiet, very cautious Frodo held her hand and eyed their visitors as he walked beside her. 

Bilbo and Bofur froze in their seats.

Menegilda ushered Frodo over to Rorimac, who swept the withdrawn four-year-old up onto his knee. Kindness replaced all of the elder’s coldness as he spoke to his nephew.

“Can you do me a favor, Pinecone?” he asked with a patient smile.

The fauntling nodded, then Rorimac directed his attention to one of the guests.

“Can you tell me who that is?”

“Uncle Bilbo,” Frodo murmured.

Mr. Baggins tried not to gulp.

“That’s right,” Rorimac said. He pointed Frodo to the other person sitting across from them. “And can you tell me who _that_ is?”

The lad stared for a few pulse-pounding moments before quirking his eyebrows. “Uncle Bofur?”

The dwarf held back a sigh of relief and gave Frodo his best cheerful nod.

“Very good,” Rorimac told the youngster. 

He turned Frodo to face him after that, and with a look to his wife, he asked the child one more question.

“How would you like to live with them back in Hobbiton?”

* * *

There was no debate after Frodo heard Rorimac’s offer. The lad agreed to it right away, and after an unbelievably happy overnight stay in Brandy Hall, a glowing Bilbo and Bofur whisked their new little addition all the way back to Bag End. The dwarf hardly let the fauntling out of his arms after learning that Frodo was now his to keep, and his partner had never seen him so blissful.

That wasn’t to say that easing the toddler into his new surroundings was a simple process. He was reserved and lethargic when they first brought him home, much like Bofur after his fight with Ori, and his uncles decided not to push him into talking about his parents’ deaths so soon. They instead felt it best to let him know that he was safe and cared for until he came around enough to have that discussion.

Two days after their return from Buckland, the couple celebrated their twentieth anniversary with Frodo as a family. It was on the morning of that milestone that they finally surprised the youngster with his eagle puppet, which kept him delightfully occupied as they donned their “matching” trinkets again and reapplied each other’s courting braids. It was only a matter of time before the lad saw those colorful tresses woven in their hair and timidly asked for one of his own. 

Bilbo left that to Bofur, who still had the better hands for such work. The braid that the dwarf gave Frodo was strung with so many different colored threads, by the little one’s choosing, of course, that it was actually a challenge to spot any hair within it by the end. It was later that evening, while the three of them sat on the floor by their fireplace after a hearty supper, that Bofur told Frodo the significance of the braids.

“They mean that your Uncle Bilbo and I care about each other very much,” he purred into the child’s pointy each. “We’re not just friends. We love each other. He and I are as good as family, and now that you’re part of our family, you get to have a braid too.” 

Frodo was already nodding off in Bofur’s lap. “Do I have to keep mine in all the time?” he mumbled.

“Of course not, Pinecone. You’re one of us with or without it. Bilbo and I just like keeping ours in. We like to remind each other of how we really feel.”

Bilbo was both charmed and skittish about revealing the true nature of their relationship to such a young halfling. Drogo and Primula had refrained from telling Frodo about it, and while the lad would have to know eventually in his new home, Bofur didn’t have a history of expertise when it came to letting children in on secrets. Nor did children in Hobbiton have a history of expertise when it came to keeping those secrets, for that matter. 

His concerns quickly left him after the next thing his partner said.

“I’m not supposed to tell that to non-dwarves. We mountain folk try to keep everything about ourselves a secret, so you have to help Uncle Bilbo and me keep what our braids mean a secret too, alright? I might get in trouble with the other dwarves, otherwise.”

It wasn’t a fib, though Bofur was exaggerating the consequences by a hair. It was certainly better than telling Frodo what the other _hobbits_ might do if the truth got out. The youngster thoughtfully played with what was left of the dwarf’s mustache while he listened.

“Why are you telling me about it if you’re not supposed to?” Frodo asked.

Bofur grinned into those black curls. “Because I like you.”

The fauntling wavered, then feeling flattered that he had been let in on such a secret, he came a little further from his shell. He patted the other’s hand just like he had seen adults do countless times before. 

“Alright,” he said. “I won’t tell.”

A few hours later, Bilbo found himself quietly watching the two of them again. He sat brimming with pride and love on one side of Frodo’s bed, in what had once been the spare bedroom, while the dwarf and the four-year-old lay snuggled together on it. They were face to face with an arm around each other, and as far as Mr. Baggins could tell, they were both sound asleep. 

It was a moment even more rewarding for the hobbit than his and his dear one’s success in Brandy Hall. Convincing Rorimac to let them have Frodo had been his goal, but seeing Bofur like this had been his dream. He almost felt like a new father gazing down at his weary lover and the little bundle produced by their labors for the first time.

Bilbo leaned over them just then and reached out to Frodo. Another wave of calm happiness rolled through him as he stroked the boy’s head, and he briefly thought of Rivendell again. He craned himself down closer to place a kiss among those dark curls, as dark as Frodo’s real father’s, then he pulled back and moved his affection to Bofur’s hair.

The dwarf wasn’t sleeping, it turned out. After savoring a few caresses, he lazily turned his head to cast his half-lidded eyes up at Bilbo. The couple shared a smile of victory until they each slid an arm around each other's waists, free to touch one another again. The hobbit leaned down then to give another kiss.

They left Frodo alone a few minutes afterwards, unwinding his arm from Bofur’s neck and pulling the fauntling’s blankets up higher, then Mr. Baggins and the toymaker went out into the brisk October night to smoke their pipes under the oak tree in their garden.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was trying to go for the subtext that Rorimac understood more about Bilbo and Bofur’s situation than he let on. Perhaps he fancied other men as well in his youth, but took a wife whose family was very traditional in the hopes of better conforming himself to the way people in the Shire are expected to act. I’m not sure if any of that shined through, but maybe some people will read it into the story.


	23. Healing Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Twenty more years pass in the Shire while Bilbo, Bofur, and Frodo try to move forward with their lives as a family.

Life as surrogate parents made the couple’s next twenty years together very different from their first twenty. As Bofur had predicted, he and Bilbo had to do quite a bit of cleaning up around Bag End for Frodo, and not just in terms of putting dirty laundry in the hamper or washed and dried dishes back in the cupboards. The hobbit and the dwarf had to take much more care in what was said around the house—and in the latter’s case, what was sung—and their usual fare of banter and antics had to be scaled down to set a better example for the ever watchful child. They especially had to make sure to keep their bedroom door locked and their voices down on those increasingly rare nights when they didn’t feel like going to sleep right after turning in.

Those weren’t the only changes that their little one brought into their lives. Bofur raised his prices very slightly at the toyshop, just so his family would have some extra money in case problems arose. He also became much more mindful of the people he associating with, his old friends from the taverns in particular, although he couldn’t hide every trace of his wild past from Frodo. It didn’t take long for the lad to spot the tiny hole in his uncle’s left earlobe through the dwarf’s shorter hair. It took even less time for him to figure out what it was from and to ask for an earring of his own.

“Sorry Pinecone,” Bofur said after stalling with a long drag from his pipe, “but the rule in my house growing up was no piercings until age seventy. That’ll have to be the rule in this house too.” 

“But hobbits are old when they’re seventy,” Frodo said.

“And your point is?”

“I won’t want one anymore when I’m old.”

Bofur laughed and coughed for a very long time after hearing that.

Bilbo had fewer changes to make for the younger hobbit, though the ones that he made were much larger than any of Bofur’s. Not only did he look at his magic ring far less often, but he hardly carried it on his person at all. He instead kept it hidden in the desk in his study, wrapped in a little ball of rags at the very back of one of the drawers. Neither of his housemates cared enough to nose that deeply through the papers and supplies stacked in front of it, and as long as he knew where his golden prize was, he didn’t crave it so badly.

This made him into a far calmer and less suspicious hobbit. More importantly, it made him into a hobbit who didn’t let his heartache follow him around so much anymore. Being able to tame his sadness from his adventure was his greatest help on the day when Frodo was finally ready to talk about his parents.

That afternoon was a distant echo of the night Bilbo had spent with Bofur while facing his grief for the heirs of Durin. The halfling sat in his armchair with Frodo on his lap while Bofur knelt beside them. The dwarf was ready with his own words of comfort, but he said little, knowing that it would serve both hobbits better if his partner did most of the talking.

Bilbo had learned from the best what to say. He explained to Frodo that Drogo and Primula’s deaths were no one’s fault, and that it had never been their intention to leave their beloved son. Things had simply been out of their control. He went on to tell the lad that while it was alright to miss them, he would see them again some day, and he should try his best to live the happy life that they had wanted for him until that day came.

Frodo spent most of the discussion with his face in Bilbo’s shoulder and his hand wrapped around one of Bofur’s fingers. He was quieter and less fitful than the older Baggins had been when dealing with his loss, perhaps because the pain of his hadn’t been buried for so long, but he still needed some time and extra assurance from his guardians before he could smile again. 

They both put him to bed that evening. By that time, the songwriter in Bilbo thought of a lullaby that he hoped might ease the boy’s longing to be with his mother and father again. He sang it after Bofur tucked Frodo in, and as he shared his lyrics, he imparted them as much onto himself as onto the fauntling.

_When the cold of winter comes,_  
_Starless night will cover day_  
_In the veiling of the sun,_  
_We will walk in bitter rain_

_But in dreams,_  
_I can hear your name,_  
_And in dreams,_  
_We will meet again_

_When the seas and mountains fall,_  
_And we come to end of days,_  
_In the dark I hear a call,_  
_Calling me there_  
_I will go there,_  
_And back again_

Frodo loved it, and every night after that when he needed help falling asleep, he would ask his Uncle Bilbo to sing it again. The youngster was also fond of the songs that Bofur would teach him from time to time, including the jolly piece about the man in the moon that the dwarf had sung in Rivendell on Thorin’s quest. The closest that Frodo ever came to being a musician himself though was blowing into Bofur’s clarinet while the toymaker played the notes for him, which the silly pair did often. 

Bilbo had always known that he was destined to be the less fun uncle from Bag End, though he never envied his partner’s relationship with the boy. He was just as close with Frodo as Bofur was, but in a different way. The two halflings spent many nights bonding over Bilbo's favorite childhood books, including the one that he had once callously cast aside to search for his magic ring, and whenever the older Baggins spied a butterfly or an unusual bird in his garden, he was always quick to summon his nephew so they could share in the wonder of it. They spent many days planting and weeding in that garden together, as well as concocting recipes in the kitchen. They would discuss any number of things throughout those activities, and in between his warnings about the Sackville-Bagginses and observations about the weather one day, Bilbo came to tell his nephew about the ways of elves.

Frodo, sadly for Bofur, took much more of a shine to tales of those magical woodland folk than he did to tales of the miners and craftsmen of the mountains. Bilbo was usually glad to speak of Rivendell and even of Mirkwood to a lesser extent at the lad's request, but after so many mentions throughout those stories of Bofur being in those places with Bilbo, another curiosity came to grow in Frodo’s mind. 

It was shortly after his sixth birthday when he asked how his uncles had met each other.

Not surprisingly, Bofur did most of the talking while Bilbo mostly made himself scarce. The dwarf sat with Frodo on the child’s bed as he told the story, and no matter how far the older hobbit wandered from that room, he always kept one ear towards its doorway to ensure that nothing too violent or frightening was said. 

Bofur knew to keep his retelling clean, even if he did keep it honest. There was no sweetened ending where everyone survived the battle for Erebor; the one-time warrior told the truth about Thorin’s fate and the fates of Fíli and Kíli, but he also told Frodo about Thorin’s redemption beforehand and the reward that the fallen dwarf king was surely enjoying with his nephews in Mahal’s banquet hall.

“Is that always where dwarves go when they die?” the toddler asked nervously.

Bofur had already pulled him into a secure embrace by then. “It is.”

Frodo fidgeted. “What about hobbits?”

“They go to the halls of _their_ maker, Eru.”

Worried eyes as blue as Primula’s rose to meet the dwarf’s. “So we won’t see you anymore after we all die?”

Bilbo nearly stepped in at that point. Again though, Bofur knew what to say.

“Of course you will, love. Things in the next world won’t be the way they are in this one. All these differences between hobbits and dwarves won’t mean a thing. Aye, we’ll be in different places, but we’ll be free to come and go between those places as we please, and no one in either hall will say we don’t belong there. Like I’ve said, Frodo, we’re a family now. Being a family has nothing to do with being the same race. Mahal and Eru are well aware of that, and they’ll see to it that a family like ours stays together.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because my heart tells me that, and my heart never tells me the wrong thing.”

Bofur pressed a kiss onto the top of the boy’s head and held him tighter. 

“Now let’s talk about life," he suggested softly after a while. "That makes for much better stories.”

Overall, Frodo liked the tale of his uncles’ adventure, and he often asked to hear it again. It was because of this that Bilbo found the courage to draw pictures of some of the journey’s more memorable episodes, just so Bofur could give the fauntling a few visuals with the account. They especially came in handy for the parts about elves, where Bofur wasn’t so thorough in his descriptions. Mr. Baggins was happy to contribute that, but he still couldn’t bring himself to speak or write about any of it. As much as his grief had left him, he was still some time away from comfortably talking about Oakenshield’s quest. 

As it happened, Frodo wasn’t the only hobbit child to hear the story. Bilbo also welcomed Hamfast’s son Samwise into Bag End many times over the years, teaching the sandy-haired youngster to read and write and even letting him try his hand at his old gaffer’s trade in the garden. Sam was equally fascinated by elves, another liking he had inherited from Hamfast, and he only seemed to have an ear for those parts of Bofur’s tale. Bilbo had to laugh at his dwarf’s increasing weariness to tell those parts each time one of the lads requested them.

Another reminder of the adventure came to Bilbo and Bofur in the form of Gandalf. The wizard visited the Shire three more times in the following decade, bringing his fireworks with him to celebrate the summer holidays in Hobbiton, and he gave the couple what news he had to give concerning their other friends. He spoke much of Erebor, though little of Moria and nothing of Ori. Bofur seemed grateful to hear what he could all the same; as long as every word from the Misty Mountains was good, which it was, he told himself there was nothing to fear for his younger friend. 

Frodo took more of a shine to Gandalf each time the elder came around. Bilbo suspected that was due to the wanderer’s role in the story of his journey to Erebor, or perhaps because the lad wanted to see if the magic maker might show off a trick or two. Bofur figured it was because of the long, silver beard. Whatever the case, their Pinecone had no shortage of questions for him concerning the outside world, and the friendly Istari had no shortage of answers.

Gandalf in turn had a few questions for Bilbo.

“And how is parenthood treating you these days?” he asked on his third visit. He was towering over the hobbit’s parlor table as they sat together with their afternoon tea.

“As well as it was when last you came to Hobbiton,” Bilbo replied. “Bofur and I have been fortunate. Twelve years old, and Frodo has yet to find any mentionable trouble—although a certain Brandybuck and a certain Took have been trying to lead him to it as of late.”

The wizard let out a small huff as he sipped his tea. The mischievous Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took lads had already made a hefty name for themselves around the Shire.

“I would think that they succeeded, from the sight of you," he said. “You’re starting to look less like the hobbit I remember.”

Bilbo absently rubbed one of his wrinkled cheeks. “But still not nearly as much like the hobbit I _should_ look like, by my age. Even Bofur has more grey in his hair than I do nowadays. There've been plenty of guesses floating around town as to how that may be.”

“So I have heard,” the other added slyly, “and in more towns than this one. The other Shirefolk are starting to think you an ageless conjurer like myself, who uses some magic he picked up in his travels to prolong his existence.”

“Well, let them think that,” the halfling grumbled. “It makes a better tale than any that Mad Baggins himself can come up with.”

His bearded companion squinted down at him. It was apparent to the wizard that Bilbo did in fact have a better guess as to how he had stayed so young, as well as what might have caused his recent bout of aging. It couldn’t have been more apparent if the host had written those guesses on his forehead. Still, Gandalf didn’t like to begin an argument with someone in their own home, and so he addressed something else that he sensed in the person across the table.

“You sound like a baker who’s been surrounded by stale bread for too long.”

Bilbo dropped his gaze, laughing in the back of his throat. “I know what you’re going to tell me: that I should leave my stale bakery and seek another venue to do what it is that I do best.”

Gandalf traded his poetic tone for a more direct one. “That was your plan eight years ago, was it not?”

The hobbit said nothing for a beat. “It was, before things changed again.”

He turned his head to glance out the window, not ready to look his mentor in the eye once more. “It’s not as if Frodo alone stopped Bofur and me from going back to the mountain. Neither of us was ready to run off again after what happened to Drogo and Primula, least of all to a place that’s put so much death in our memories already. We needed time to heal, and so did Frodo, and I suppose we’re all still healing together. It’s just that it gets restless lying in a sickbed all the time.”

Gandalf smiled at the metaphor, then reached over and patted the smaller being’s shoulder. “Then perhaps it would do the three of you good to get out of those beds and stretch your legs for a day. Surely Frodo is old enough and strong enough for that.”

He winked then. “And surely _you_ are not too old for it.”

It was advice that Bilbo took to heart. A few days after the wizard’s departure, the halfling embraced his Tookish side again and invited Bofur and Frodo for a hike around the borders of Hobbiton. His partner and his nephew took to it as much as he did, and their little family soon made a tradition of it on special occasions. 

One such occasion came two years later, on the day of Bilbo and Bofur’s thirtieth anniversary. The trio had grown considerably more adventurous by then, as had their feet grown more resilient. They went all the way east to the Old Forest, where they spent the day looking and listening to determine if the trees there really could come alive like the local legends said. Bofur tried throwing his voice a few times to fool the hobbits, but it never worked, and they never heard any other voices. Deciding it was because the trees preferred to move about when they thought they were alone—much like the stone giants in the mountains—the three went home far from discouraged.

The decade after that was largely uneventful. Frodo spent more time with his friends and less with his uncles as he grew through his teens and tweens, and Bilbo and Bofur came to trust him on his own more and more as they settled into their ways as Shire-dwelling explorers. Mr. Baggins and the dwarf mingled with their fellow Shirelings happily enough, though they could see that Frodo felt more in place among those folk than the two of them did.

The couple discussed their future every now and then over those ten years. They would converse about a number of things—whether they should return to Erebor, whether they should remain there if they chose to return, and whether or not they should take Frodo away with them, since he was so content where he was. They would always conclude, regardless of what they decided for any of those things, that they should remain in the Shire for just a little longer for their nephew’s sake. 

Every time, they were both perfectly content with that conclusion.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bilbo's lullaby for Frodo is the song "In Dreams" from the _Fellowship of the Ring_ movie soundtrack. I liked the thought that the hobbits' musical theme in the _Lord of the Rings_ films might actually come from something personal and comforting in Frodo's life, especially since it plays when he reunites with Bilbo in Rivendell. I don't imagine Bilbo singing it quite the same as Edward Ross though. 
> 
> I also wanted to explain how Martin Freeman Bilbo came to look like Ian Holm Bilbo even though the Ring was supposedly preventing him from aging all of those years; he stopped carrying it for a while in between and the effects temporarily wore off.


	24. Reading and Recalling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When approached with a business proposition for his toyshop, Bofur makes use of more than one lesson that Bilbo has taught him over the years.

Thirty-seven years of operation had been good to Bofur’s toyshop. The former curiosity shop full of strange dwarf-made objects had evolved into one of Hobbiton’s most highly regarded establishments, and its tall, bald-footed owner had become so familiar that the locals had all but forgotten that he hailed from the mountains. He and Bilbo never ruled out the possibility that there were more Shirefolk who craved adventure than anyone would admit, and that those spirited individuals rather liked the idea of purchasing items crafted by such worldly hands. Whether or not that was true, it was rare for the shop to be open without at least one customer inside. 

One day in October brought a different sort of visitor to the dwarf’s place of business. Bofur was just unlocking the shop’s door that morning, dressed as always in his hat and his favorite royal blue scarf that he had received on Bilbo’s birthday—he still couldn’t believe that tradition!—when a hobbit approached him on the road. The thin, blonde fellow looked to be in his forties, and he held a leather folder stuffed with papers to his chest. He had the same nervous intrigue about him that a child would have upon meeting Bofur for the first time.

“Excuse me, are you Mr. Bofur from Bag End?” he asked from behind the toymaker.

The larger figure turned to him cheerfully. “There’s no ‘Mr.’ to it, but aye, I’m your dwarf.”

The hobbit shook his hand in a spur of excitement. “Well good morning to you! My name is Seredic Brandybuck.”

Bofur started at the name, and he only brightened more when he noticed the gold wedding band on one of the hobbit’s fingers. “Oh, you’re a Brandybuck! Have we met before?”

“No,” Seredic said. “I live much more to the south of Hobbiton than to the west. I’m rarely in these parts, but I’ve heard plenty about your toyshop.” He peeked awkwardly around the dwarf. “Is this is?”

The mountaineer looked jokingly to the door and then to the key in his hand. “It should be, or else there’s a locksmith in town with some explaining to do.”

They shared a chuckle as Bofur led the Brandybuck inside. Once the shop was set up for the day and the owner lit his pipe, he and his new acquaintance situated themselves across from each other at a table behind the counter. Seredic took his eyes off of his festive surroundings and addressed the folder in his arms at that time.

“It _is_ business that I hoped to bring here today,” he explained, “but probably not the sort that normally comes through your door.”

Bofur cocked a curious eyebrow. “What sort is it?” 

Seredic set his folder on the table. “Supplies. I’m here on behalf of a small timber company in Hardbottle called Brace and Sand. It’s their understanding that you go to a number of companies all over Hobbiton to purchase your crafting wood. Is that correct?”

“Aye,” Bofur said with a puff of smoke. “It’s a way to burn off my breakfasts for the sake of business.”

“But that must be very time-consuming.”

The dwarf shrugged. “It depends on the day and the weather.”

“Well, if you were to consider getting your materials from a single supplier, you wouldn’t have to worry about such things. Plus, all of your materials would be of an equal quality. Consistency is good for any business.”

“True enough,” Bofur admitted. “I guess I just find it more sporting to spread the wealth when I’m gathering supplies, so to speak.”

“Do you ever find yourself short on time when it comes to crafting your wares?”

“I try to do as much of it as I can around here during the day, but some of the more intricate pieces do find their way home with me.”

“So you spend even _more_ of your leisure time on business when that happens,” Seredic pinpointed.

The other frowned as this sank in. “I guess I do.”

Seeing that he had a bite on his lure, the hobbit eagerly flipped open his folder. He produced a flyer for Brace and Sand and handed it over the table to the shop owner.

“Then maybe you’ll consider making an arrangement with us?” he offered.

Bofur accepted the flyer as if he wasn’t sure what he should do with it. “Right now?”

“Oh, no!” Seredic said with a jump. “Take as long as you’d like to decide. I can always come back.”

Bofur inhaled from his pipe again while gathering his thoughts. 

“I don’t really think I _can_ decide until I see what I’m arranging to buy,” he confessed.

The halfling nodded. “Of course. I can bring wood samples next time. Perhaps in a week from now?”

“That suits me fine,” Bofur said with a pleasant nod of his own.

They shook hands again, and the dwarf bid the Brandybuck farewell. Bofur spent much of that day turning over Seredic’s offer in his head, and he decided as he closed his shop that evening that he liked the idea. Why not save himself a little time when he wasn’t working? He didn’t see as much of Frodo these days as he did when his lad was younger, so he ought to make the most of the time that he had. 

It never crossed his mind to mention the prospect to Bilbo throughout that week. His partner largely stayed out of matters pertaining to the toyshop, and this matter seemed so simple and minor that Bofur often forgot about it at home. There wouldn’t be anything worth mentioning until after the toymaker made his decision, really.

Just as agreed, Seredic returned to the toyshop a week later with some sample pieces of wood for Bofur to examine. He said they were the dwarf’s to keep, free of charge, if the toymaker wished to test them out by carving them into something. Bofur thought it a capital idea and spent the day doing just that. All the while, Seredic explored his shop in admiration and chatted with him.

It was an informative chat. Bofur learned that the young representative had a wife named Hilda and three children, and that his family was thinking of moving north from Hardbottle in the near future. Seredic primarily made his living as a miller, but he was currently trying to find his way into a more profitable business to support his growing brood. That was where his dealings with the blossoming Brace and Sand Company came in.

An anecdote about the Brandybuck’s mother also surfaced while he browsed the shop. It was some time in the afternoon when Seredic ventured into the pricier section and caught sight of an item on one of the top shelves. The item was a wooden music box, painted a regal purple, and when its lid was lifted, a tiny figure of a lady inside slowly spun to the tune that played.

“My mother spoke of having one similar to this when she was a girl,” the hobbit said as he held the box and watched the tiny lady twirl. “She was a Tunnelly from Bree, and part Took. Her family must have crossed paths with a few dwarf merchants before she settled in the Shire.”

“It’s possible,” Bofur said from behind the counter. “My older cousin made things of that nature and used to sell them from town to town. Your mother never mentioned meeting a dwarf with an axe in his head in Bree, did she?”

Seredic blushed and placed the music box back on the shelf. “Not that I recall.”

Bofur had carved a small horse and a cart from those samples by the end of that day. The wood was indeed of a sound quality, certainly worth a long-term investment, but he still wasn’t ready to finalize such an agreement. He asked if Seredic would mind returning once more the following day, and the other agreed.

On his third visit, the hobbit presented Bofur with a contract to sign. The former illiterate had grown wiser since his days of blindly leaving fingerprints at the bottom of such documents, and he took his time reading the one from Brace and Sand. He sat again with Seredic at the table behind his counter as he poured over the lengthy piece of literature.

Admittedly, Bofur didn’t understand much of the talk in it. He may have been a businessman, but he was still a fairly simple one, and and he had never built much of a legal vocabulary for himself. He was beginning to think that he should show the contract to Bilbo when he reached its very bottom fold.

One paragraph in particular on that fold struck him as rather odd. He had almost glanced over it in his weariness from reading so much, but something urged him look at it a second time and read it closer. In doing so, he deciphered that it was stating a claim for Brace and Stock. Were he to sign off on the agreement, he would owe his new supplier one half of the profit made from each sale of an item made from their materials, as they had contributed to its manufacturing. 

Bofur had to read that paragraph a third time before he was convinced of its meaning.

He found it an odd condition for many reasons. If he _did_ sign to this agreement, every item in his shop would eventually be made from Brace and Sand’s materials, which would eventually mean that his supplier would be taking half of his entire income. He found it odder still that they should even lay such a high claim to it, seeing how they had stated earlier in the contract that they would only offer him a pittance of a discount for purchasing their materials. Why would they demand half of his earnings when most of the meager profit that he made would be paid to them in exchange for more materials anyway? And for that matter, why should any supplier expect equal payment for the sale of an item that was mostly the work of someone else, especially someone who had already paid them what was due for their contribution to that item?

Bofur was floundering in this whirlwind of questions when he suddenly remembered that Seredic lived in Hardbottle and had a wife named Hilda, and that Bruno Bracegirdle was from the same town and had a grown daughter with the same name. The dwarf had half a mind to guess then that the name Brace and Sand may have been derived from the last names of its owners, the first of whom was likely a Bracegirdle. 

He had no trouble remembering from there who Bruno’s brother-in-law was, and he came to guess why Brace and Sand would be set on claiming so much of the toyshop’s earnings—earnings that would have partially gone to Frodo otherwise.

Bofur suddenly coughed and sat back in his chair, feeling crestfallen and more than a little angry. He must have looked that way as well, because Seredic asked if anything was the matter. The dwarf excused himself, barely attempting to sound cordial, then he grabbed some parchment, a quill, and an inkpot and stormed off to another part of the shop.

He returned ten minutes later to a very confounded Seredic. Bofur was much calmer by then, though he refrained from taking his seat again, and he stood with both hands behind his back. He scrutinized the Brandybuck for a moment and finally said what he had come to say.

“I've decided to shorten my business hours. That's how I'll make more leisure time for myself. Seredic, I truly believe that you’re a decent fellow who would never knowingly take advantage of anyone, and for that, you can have this.”

He drew one hand out from behind him to reveal what it held. It was the purple music box that Seredic had commented on the day before. Bofur held it out to the young hobbit, who emerged from his daze just enough to accept the surprise gift.

“I wish you luck in your career,” Bofur went on, “but I can’t sign that contract, and I suggest you read it more carefully yourself, lad.”

He finished by revealing the item in his other hand, a sealed envelope with the name “Otho” written boldly across it. 

“I also want you to give this to your supplier, and tell _him_ to give it to his brother-in-law.”

Seredic accepted the envelope as well. He never asked what the letter inside of it said, and Bofur never told him. It was difficult for the dwarf not to share that information, since he was so pleased with what he had written, but he knew that the letter’s effect would be strongest if its intended receiver was the first person to know its message. 

_Dear Otho,_

_I give my sincerest congratulations to you on a most impressive attempt, but I don’t recommend making any more._

_~ Bofur_

When the dwarf returned home that evening, he gave Bilbo an entire bouquet of brilliantly colored pansies and a massive bear hug that lifted the hobbit right off of his feet. Mr. Baggins asked what these affections were for, since their anniversary was still another two weeks away. Bofur replied with a grin that they were for, in his words, “saving my business.”

Bilbo heard nothing more from the Sackville-Bagginses, let alone any trouble, for a very long time.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had originally invented an OC named Holman Bracegirdle for this chapter, but I wanted to to hide the twist better, so I did some research for the heck of it and dug up Seredic Brandybuck, a real hobbit from Tolkien's universe. I think it does a much better job of showing Otho's devious nature by implying that he used one of his Brandybuck in-laws to win Bofur's trust.


	25. Unexpected Tidings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bilbo and Bofur go on a small adventure to recapture some of their youth for their fortieth anniversary.

The Bag End couple had decided well in advance that their fortieth anniversary was to be a particularly special event. The way they figured, it would either be their last decade anniversary in the Shire or their first as permanent residents there, depending on how Frodo felt about leaving it, so they ought to make the most of the milestone. It was so special, in fact, that they actually began celebrating it a day early.

Ever the adventurous pair, Bilbo and Bofur set out together on the morning of the twenty-fifth with a full knapsack on each of their backs. They of course had given Frodo many invitations to join them, but every time, the twenty-four-year-old hobbit had elected to stay behind. He seemed taken with the idea of being the Master of Bag End for a few days, and he also seemed to believe that his uncles would have a much more enjoyable trip if it was only the two of them. The lad had fondly congratulated them and seen them off that morning, and his departing guardians had looked back until the highest branches of their oak tree had disappeared behind the hills.

They spent the entire day hiking east. The hobbit and the dwarf kept a slower pace than they would have in the past, partly from age and partly because they wanted to savor the autumn scenery. They made it to the edge of the Old Forest by sunset, and while they did stop there for the night, they didn’t seek shelter in Buckland. Instead, they unfurled their bed rolls and camped out under the stars, just as they had on their journey to Erebor half a century ago. Bilbo Baggins sank peacefully into slumber with an endless sea of constellations over his head and the sound of a lilting, lulling clarinet beside him.

He and Bofur remained in that grassy spot the next morning, where they commenced their anniversary the same way they did every year: by exchanging gifts. 

They had expanded their horizons when making their purchases. Bilbo gave his gift to Bofur first, and the mountaineer carefully opened the small box to discover a gleam of gold and sapphire inside. It was a ring of dwarvish make, which Bilbo had personally ordered from the Blue Mountains.

Bofur’s eyes were bigger than his mouth at this revelation. “You mean...” he ogled at the ring again. “Is this...?”

Bilbo had to take his lover’s hands to steady them. “It’s a gift from home, and it’s yours,” he said tenderly. “You can wear it all the time, just like the Brandybucks wear rings from _their_ partners.”

Bofur found his voice then, but still no words. He stammered and babbled in excitement as the halfing assisted him in moving the ring from its box to his finger, and he all but tackled Bilbo into the grass when a “thank you” finally came out. The dwarf laughed and rambled with glee, admiring how the deep blue gemstone dazzled in the morning sunlight, until he realized something that made him so still and silent.

His hobbit straightened up at the sight of that dreading expression. “What’s wrong?”

Bofur’s gaze drifted down to the large, flat package that he had yet to give to Bilbo. His hand went to it as well to retrieve it. “Nothing. I just...I’ll get you something else after we get home.”

“It’s no contest,” the other said with a half-chuckle. His fingers brushed onto one corner of the package. 

“ _I’ll_ say it isn’t,” Bofur went on, still ogling at his ring. He jerked his head down at the mystery gift in his other hand. “I mean, aye, I paid a bit for this, but I didn’t pay...” He gestured to his present again. “ _This_.”

Bilbo lightly pushed the toymaker’s ring hand down. “It’s the thought that counts. Come on. I’d like to see what you got for me.”

The larger figure composed himself after a moment, then he handed over his offering with a timidness most unbecoming of himself. The halfling took the package with a smile and quickly unwrapped its brown paper coverings. When he was done, Bilbo held his present in his lap to examine it.

It was a book. There was no title to be seen on either side of it, and a quartet of thin, leather ties bound its red cover shut along its edges. Two swirling embossments in the shape of twin trees framed the cover’s front, and at the top center where the trees’ branches came to meet, a silver star gleamed. At the bottom center, nestled between the roots of the trees, sat a pair of silver, intertwining “B’s”’. 

Bilbo ran his fingertips slowly over the designs, taking in the feeling of every indentation.

“It’s a journal,” Bofur disclosed awkwardly. “I thought you’d like it for all your songs and drawings. The “B’s” on the front are for both of our names—or for your initials. Whichever you fancy more.”

The halfling was still swept up in the soft, flowing patterns in the leather. They reminded him of something, but his knowledge of mountain folk made him question what his gut told him. He smiled up at Bofur again.

“Where did you get this? It doesn’t look of dwarvish make.”

Bofur’s eyes stayed down. “That’s because it’s from Rivendell.”

Bilbo stared in awe for almost a minute until his _Abanul_ met his gaze.

“I love it,” the hobbit breathed happily.

Still bashful, his partner averted his eyes once more and slipped a large hand towards the book. Bofur pulled the ties loose and nudged the front cover’s brim with his thumb, signaling Bilbo to open it. The smaller adventurer did, and he found another surprise tucked into the journal’s first page.

Ori’s yellowing sketch looked calmly back up at the much older face that had inspired it.

Mr. Baggins lifted another disbelieving stare to his dwarf. Bofur shied back again, less so than before, and as his hand found its way to the other’s smaller one, he warmly raised the corners of his lips. 

“Happy anniversary, Acorn.”

* * *

Just as they had the day before, the couple spent their special day hiking east. Bofur donned his old boots again for that stretch of the journey, and Bilbo also seemed to find an extra spring in his step. They strolled and crunched their way through the autumn-colored Old Forest in little time. When they reached the eastern edge of the wood, the hobbit and the dwarf stopped, took deep breaths, then both set foot outside of the Shire for the first time since their quest.

The thrill of this sent them off and running like a pair of rambunctious children.

Bilbo could barely describe what went through his head during his sprint. He didn’t reflect on his last adventure or think about what lay behind or ahead of him. The only things he cared to focus on were the thud of every footstep and the blast of cool wind in his face as he tore off across that open green field. He felt young and free again, with all of the time and all of the ability to go wherever he pleased, and the grinning hobbit wanted that feeling to last as long as possible before the truth caught up to him.

That point came just a few minutes after he sped away. The sound of a hacking cough grabbed his ears from far behind, and glancing back, he spied Bofur. The dwarf had dropped his walking stick on the ground beside him to double over with his hands on his knees.

The halfling staggered to a halt and doubled back. His grin hadn’t diminished in the slightest when he reached his winded partner.

“I think you’ve been spending too much time with Old Toby,” he teased in good humor.

“Oh, have a heart,” Bofur wheezed. “I’m not the dwarf I used to be.”

“I seem to recall Balin holding his own just fine on worse runs and with several more years under his belt.”

“Well, then I’m certainly not the dwarf _he_ used to be either.”

Bofur pulled off his hat temporarily to wipe the sweat from his brow. Bilbo continued to watch him with childish delight.

“Do you need a handkerchief?” he asked, smirking. 

Before the other could huff out an answer, Bilbo reached into his pocket and handed over the desired piece of cloth. Bofur wiped his face with it for a minute. It was only after he had finished doing so that he bothered to look at what he had been given.

The toymaker fell to his knees laughing.

“You _kept_ this ratty old rag for fifty years?”

Blbo gave an exaggerated shrug. “It would have been impolite to throw it away without asking if you wanted it back first.”

* * *

The pair made it almost to the town of Bree by that evening. They might have covered the rest of that distance by an early hour of night, but once more, they chose to set up camp together in the wild. Bree was not their destination, nor was any other place in Middle-Earth. Their goal for the day had simply been to see how far they could go, and that was precisely what they had done. They would begin their journey back to Hobbiton at daybreak, but the night was theirs to spend where and doing what they desired.

They made their settlement atop the easternmost hill of the Barrow Downs. With little more than their bed rolls to prepare, they were finished with plenty of time to watch the sun set behind them. Bofur sat in the grass with Bilbo held sideways in his lap, and as they kept each other warm from the October chill, they savored the view of that glowing ball of light sinking into the horizon amid a deepening orange sky.

It was when the sky had darkened to a sensuous ruby that the couple faced each other.

Bilbo slid his arms loosely around his partner’s neck, feeling the ends of Bofur’s short hair peeking out from under the back of his hat. The hobbit was smiling from ear to ear, just like the dwarf, and his blue eyes seemed starrier than the sky overhead. He leaned in to touch their courting braids together, then another romantic spur made him murmur into the other’s ear.

“I want to thank you, Bofur.”

The mountaineer nosed at that pointy ear in turn. “For what?”

Bilbo pulled back just enough so that he could look into the dwarf’s gaze. “For everything. For staying with me when you didn’t have to, for weathering all of my nagging and fussing, and for giving me a hundred laughs and a hundred smiles for every one headache that you’ve given me.” 

He paused for them to share a quiet chuckle. “I want to thank you for...for deciding I was someone who deserved to keep laughing and smiling, someone who deserved to be loved, even when I refused to see that good in myself. You saved me, Bofur, just like always. You saved me from _me_ , and you gave me back my courage, and you made me happy again. I will always love _you_ for that.”

Bofur’s face grew even softer and kinder throughout the pledge, even as Bilbo’s voice began to strain and weaken near the end of it. He tightened his arms ever so slightly around that little figure, granting him just a little more warmth and safety. As the red sky darkened still to purple, the dwarf gathered his own loving thoughts and uttered them in turn.

“I want to thank you too, Bilbo Baggins,” he said, “for giving me something that no one ever has before.”

Bilbo blinked. “What’s that?”

Bofur answered with twinkling green eyes. “Second chances. I let you down that last night in Erebor, but you welcomed me back into your home when I came around, and then you welcomed me back into your heart. When I was...well, dwarf-like...when I was stubborn and brash and pigheaded and caused you so much grief, you never wanted me to leave. You always forgave me. And when I made a terrible mistake with Ori...”

The dwarf’s voice failed and his taut lips quivered, but his watery gaze never left Bilbo’s. The hobbit immediately brought a hand back to caress Bofur’s cheek. The mountaineer found the strength to smile again as he finished.

“...You gave me Frodo. You’ve saved _me_ from myself just as many times, and you’ve made this the happiest forty years of my life, which is saying something. There’s no one in this world that I trust more than you. I love you too, Bilbo.”

One of his own powerful hands found its way to the back of the halfling’s neck, and with a feather-light touch, he tilted Bilbo’s head forward to press their brows together. There was nothing else they could do from there but kiss, and so they did. They moved very slowly once their lips were together, but both could feel the heat rising between them as they gradually drew each other closer. The kiss soon deepened, as did their breathing, and their breath was heavy and muggy when their mouths finally parted. There was no glimpse, but a brilliant glare of amorous hunger in each of their eyes.

Bilbo lifted himself on unsteady legs to straddle Bofur. He was about to move one leg across that larger lap when he felt one of the dwarf’s hands on his hip, stopping him. The other hand found its way to his opposite hip in the growing dark, then the halfling was lifted effortlessly that way. Bofur’s own hips shifted beneath him until Bilbo was lowered into position. The smaller figure was struck speechless when he realized what position that was.

He had been placed between Bofur’s thighs.

The toymaker greeted that stunned little gawk with infinite fondness.

“...And for all of those reasons, you can ‘take’ me,” he added to his speech.

Bilbo didn’t move for close to a minute. When he stirred, he had to lower his head to steady himself.

“You’re sure?” he choked out. 

“The surest I’ve ever been, love.”

“Look, Bofur, if this is because of your ring—”

“No, no,” the dwarf laughed. “I meant to do this long before that.” 

His voice grew low and sultry. “This is our special day, I trust you, and I want to see what my wee, innocent burglar has learned from his guide over the past forty years.” 

Bilbo was trembling from head to toe with emotion. He felt so overwhelmed that for a second he thought he might not be able to accept this intimate, beautiful gift, but then he felt one of those strong miner’s hands slide up his back, and a calmness washed over him. He leaned in and gave Bofur another, smaller kiss. 

“I’ll be careful,” he vowed. “I swear, I will be every bit as gentle and mindful and unhurried and _loving_ as you have always been with me.”

He might have gone on indefinitely if Bofur hadn’t calmed him with another quick kiss. The dwarf leaned back then, barely visible in the night now, and grinned at his partner. 

“Bofur at your service,” he whispered.

The hobbit gave chase. “Bilbo Baggins at yours.”

Their lips melted together a final time as they wrapped each other in another tight embrace. Bofur slowly lay back then, lowering them together onto the grass. Bilbo used his very last shred of propriety for the evening to reach up and remove his _Abanul_ ’s hat, grasping its flaps with white knuckles and dragging the accessory under Bofur’s head as a makeshift pillow.

 _Good night and joy be with us both,_ the hobbit thought.

And it was.

* * *

Bilbo found himself huddled next to Bofur’s warmth again one morning the following March. He lay snoozing with him in their bed, dressed in their nightwear and tucked away in the comforts of Bag End once more. His dwarf’s back was turned to him, and the halfling had one cheek resting against the spot between those hefty shoulderblades.

That made for a rather jarring experience when the latest coughing fit seized Bofur.

Bilbo edge back with a groan from the convulsing figure, saying good-bye to that earthy, smoky scent. He reached over then to deliver a few helpful pats to Bofur’s back. That was the usual remedy for such episodes. When that failed to end the wretching, the toymaker clapped a palm over his mouth and propped himself up on one elbow to lean over his side of the mattress.

His smaller bedmate yawned and sat up to give their second remedy a try. Turning to the nightstand on his side of the bed, Bilbo took up a waiting drinking glass and a pitcher of water. He was almost done pouring Bofur’s drink when the coughing peaked behind him with a wet-sounding expulsion. There was silence after that.

The hobbit stopped pouring. He looked over his shoulder at Bofur and saw the other still turned away with one arm propping him up. The dwarf appeared to be staring down at something.

Mr. Baggins returned his items to the nightstand and leaned over his partner’s shoulder.

“Bofur? What’s the—”

He froze as soon as he peered over his lover. Bofur’s face held the same shocked expression. The hand that had covered his mouth was now hovering open in front of him.

It was covered in blood.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All I can say is hold onto your hats for the next few chapters...


	26. Crumbling Foundations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bofur's health and hopefulness begin to deteriorate, and Bilbo struggles to face what the future may bring.

Frodo had already left home for the morning by the time his uncles had awoken. Bilbo couldn’t blame the lad for such a thing, as it had become a routine for his nephew, but it placed the elderly hobbit in the unfortunate position of having to leave Bofur alone in Bag End while he ventured out in search of a physician himself. He promised his stunned partner that everything would be alright, then he took off on foot through town until he reached the home of Gruffo Boffin in Overhill.

Gruffo concluded his examination of Bofur two hours later. He stood with his patient seated before him in an armchair in Bag End’s den, watched like a hawk by the nearby Mr. Baggins. The medical expert quietly set aside his tools when he finished, and after taking a moment to collect himself, he faced the pair somberly.

“I can’t be fully certain,” he informed them. “I’m only practiced on hobbit folk, but on them, the signs that Mr. Bofur shows...are not favorable.”

The dwarf showed no reaction to this. He only stared forward with empty eyes and a closed mouth. Perched on the end of the coffee table, Bilbo wasn’t so aware or accepting.

“What do you mean ‘not favorable’?” he asked warily.

Gruffo was becoming more uncomfortable by the second. “Little to no chance of recovery.”

Bilbo fluttered his eyelids in surprise and leaned in. “What?” 

“What caused this?” Bofur asked dourly.

The physician shook his head. “That’s never been determined.”

The mountaineer nodded and slouched forward, wringing his hands. He had yet to look at anyone. “How much time do I have? I mean—if there’s no chance?”

“After the blood...two to three months,” Gruffo answered. He hurried to add, “But that’s for hobbits. Dwarves may be different. They’re stronger.”

Bofur bobbed his head again, seeming haunted. “Is there anything we can do?”

His examiner stole a glance at him and Bilbo. “The best thing you can do is try to keep in good spirits.”

Mr. Baggins scraped together enough sense after that to thank the other hobbit for his time. Gruffo gave them his condolences, saying nothing of payment for his service, and walked himself to the door. The last the couple heard of him was the distant click of the front door closing.

Neither of them said or did anything for a long while. The halfling made the first move by rising from his seat. His legs felt like jelly with leaden feet, but when Bofur sat up and held out his heavy arms, Bilbo walked into them. The pair went still once more with the smaller figure’s cheek buried in the crown of the other’s head.

It was Bofur who broke the silence.

“What are we going to tell Frodo?”

Bilbo’s throat tightened, and he wrapped his arms more tightly around his partner as well. His lips found their way into that thick, grey-streaked hair to place a comforting endearment there. He had to blink the fog from his eyes before he could give an answer.

“Let _me_ worry about that,” he whispered. His voice was too weak to do anything more. “You’re not going to worry about anything. And...and I want you to know that whatever should come of this, Bofur, I will be right here to take care of you.”

The larger being pulled back slightly from his embrace. Sparkling green eyes lifted from the hobbit’s chest, followed by a heartfelt smile.

“See?” Bofur rasped. “I’ve told you that nothing unfortunate ever happens to me.”

A glint of pain behind those emerald orbs betrayed the dwarf. Bilbo caught it, and those resurrected words made a sob of laughter punch up through his throat. He sank just a little on his trembling legs to rest his head on one of those wide shoulders. His partner’s chin came to sit on his in turn, and one of those large, warm hands pressed the halfling closer to his holder.

Bilbo closed his eyes and quietly inhaled that familiar scent, cherishing what could be Bofur’s last moment as the protector among them.

* * *

Frodo returned to Bag End roughly an hour after Gruffo Boffin left it. His guardians were waiting for him in the den, where they ushered him to Bilbo’s armchair and told him what they knew. It was in the same chair where he had come to accept his parents’ deaths that the younger Baggins learned that he might soon lose one of his uncles as well.

Bofur was there for his lad. While Bilbo gingerly broke the news, the toymaker knelt beside Frodo with a firm hand on the youngster’s shoulder to show that he was still with him and still well enough. There was denial at first from their troubled nephew, but the discussion eventually ended with the three of them huddled together in dreary support.

It was a terrible day for everyone. 

Even so, Gruffo had been right about the strength of dwarves. Bofur not only remained alive after three months, but he also remained alive after five. 

That wasn’t to say though that he remained in the same condition. The once energetic crafter had begun to show increasing signs of fatigue shortly after his bloody discovery, and getting around had soon become a challenge for him. That combined with his apparently limited time had pushed him to a very difficult decision: he had sold his toyshop.

His beloved business hadn’t gone into untrustworthy hands. Seredic Brandybuck’s family had already moved to Hobbiton by that time and befriended more than a few members of the Cotton family. There were crafters among those members, and since Seredic was familiar with the shop and had shown enough business savvy to distance himself from Brace and Sand, Bofur had deemed him a worthy successor.

Suddenly having all the leisure time that he could afford, the former toymaker had devoted every hour he could spare to Frodo. The boy had done the same, and the two of them had become nearly as reclusive as Bilbo had been following his return from Erebor. Mr. Baggins had admired his nephew’s dedication, but he had been sad to see the tween become a hermit. Bofur had seemed to feel the same way.

“There’s no need for you to hover around the house in the evening,” the dwarf had said one day while playing cards with the youth at the parlor table. “Mahal knows I won’t be awake for most of it.”

“There’s no need for me to hover around the taverns either,” Frodo had replied flatly.

Bofur had sat up straight in his chair. “No need? Oh, Pinecone, I’m sure that Sam and Meriadoc and Peregrin and all your other friends are wondering what’s happened to you. And don’t tell me that a good-looking lad like yourself doesn’t have any _lady_ friends missing him.”

Frodo had paused to blush. “They’ll be fine.”

Bofur’s craving for his pipe had also left him in those five months, as had his once hearty appetite for food. In exchange, his beard, mustache, and most of his hair had returned. It was no secret why he would desire to look like his old self again, and that bushy frame had helped to soften the gaunt look that his shrinking meals had brought to his features. Having his long, braided pigtails at his shoulders had been one of his few comforts when the day had come that he was too weak to leave his bed anymore.

Bilbo, as promised, had been there to tend to his dear one on that day and on every one after it. The hobbit had brought his _Abanul_ everything that he had required and assisted him with everything he had needed to do, never once with complaint or lament. He had often forced a chipper demeanor, hoping to keep Bofur in good spirits as suggested, though a part of him had always suspected that his bedridden charge could see through that disguise.

This fear was confirmed late one August afternoon. It was the first time since their troubles began that the mountaineer had swayed Frodo into leaving the house, and with so much there for Bilbo to do alone, Bofur had some rare solitude. He must have gotten too comfortable with it, because when Bilbo came into their bedroom with a tray of tea for him, the dwarf wasn’t ready for him.

The halfling set down the tray and scurried around to the bed’s left side when he saw his partner cowering in a ball there.

“Bofur?” he called cautiously. “Bofur. Are you—”

He stooped to take the other by the shoulders. The halfling had to lift that scruffy chin to make the other look up at him. That was when he came face to face with a pair of doleful, lifeless eyes.

“It was the pipe,” Bofur declared weakly. “That had to be what did this. I smoked it all the time.”

Bilbo had to take a seat on the edge of the mattress when all of this set in. He almost would have preferred it if he had found the dwarf crying again. That at least was an expression of sorrow that he was familiar with, one that he knew how to handle. This was something beyond that. It was complete hollow depression, and he had no better guess of how to counter it now than he had for his own bout of it fifty years ago.

Bilbo Baggins was nothing if he wasn’t a hobbit who tried, though. 

“Bofur, I smoked Old Toby all the time too,” he started, stroking those long, braided locks.

“It wasn’t Old Toby that I used,” Bofur cut in. “Not much of it. I wanted something stronger, something that would have a longer effect. I mixed together so many different kinds of pipeweed that I can’t even remember what most of them were, and I smoked them all the time. Now it’s turned me into this—” 

Bilbo quickly kissed his forehead. “Bofur, you don’t know that.”

“—and I’m going to leave you and Frodo.” 

The hobbit pulled back in alarm to meet his eye. The first pang of heartbreak seeped into the dwarf’s voice at that. 

“I’m so sorry, Bilbo,” he warbled. “I don’t want to leave you, I really don’t, but it’s going to happen whether I want it to or not. I’m going to leave both of you, and neither one of you will be happy anymore. I might as well have been boating at night as well for all these years.”

It was the truth. Bilbo would never in a thousand years say so to Bofur, but it was truly what the rattled halfling believed that afternoon. His dwarf was everything to him; his supportive stone foundation that he needed to keep himself standing and the light in his darkness that he needed to keep himself going. Death had already stolen so many friends and loved ones from him and Frodo, and he saw no chance of them ever knowing a shred of strength, hope, or joy again if it also stole their beloved Bofur.

That was why a short time later, Mr. Baggins found himself standing in the master bedroom’s doorway with one hand behind his back.

Bofur had sunk onto his back and into another gloomy nap by then. The hobbit watched him for several minutes, waiting to see if he might stir. When the dwarf remained motionless, save for the gradual rise and fall of his chest, Bilbo summoned the nerve to cross the room to his bedside. It wasn’t until he convinced himself a final time that his lover was asleep that he brought forth his hidden item.

His magic ring glittered as brilliantly as ever in his palm.

The halfling absently ran a hand down his own face. It was weathered, to be sure, but not nearly as much as it should have been. Not as far from youth as a one-hundred-and-one-year-old ought to have felt. The only explanation he could possibly fathom for such abnormal aging was his golden trinket. He would probably still look like a hobbit of fifty years had he not tucked it away in his desk drawer for so long.

The ring had stopped his body from changing. It had preserved his health and prolonged his life. If it could have that effect on one person, surely it could have that effect on another.

Bilbo took one of Bofur’s hands and moved it towards him. He daintily lifted the dwarf’s pinky, the only finger small enough for the hobbit-sized band, then he leaned in with his ring at the ready.

He was a hair away from slipping it onto the other’s finger when he halted. Whether it was a moment of clarity or doubt, or perhaps both, he couldn’t say. He only knew right then that he shouldn’t be so quick to do what he was considering.

How certain was he that the ring would do what he intended for Bofur? His only real test subject had been himself, and while the enchanted device may have bestowed that one blessing upon him, it had also bestowed more than one curse. His distrust, his aggression, his bitterness, his greed; his ring must have been the cause of all of those awful things. Now he was on the verge of subjecting the love of his life to that same fate—of letting the desire for a piece of treasure twist his dwarf into something despicable just as it had done to Thorin—for the sake of something that he, Bilbo Baggins, wanted.

His hand that held his ring began to tremble, almost as if the tiny object had grown heavier. Another voice of reason echoed through his head then, further driving in the belief that he mustn’t give away the magical object. Bilbo swallowed hard and drew in a loud breath. The stab of it in his chest made him release a much louder sound in response.

Stifling the sob, the hobbit recoiled with his ring and spun himself away from his partner. He dropped to his knee then, still clinging to Bofur’s hand, and he pressed his fist with that baneful piece of jewelry inside it to his lips to muffle his next cry. In the end, he had to drop the band into his pocket and flee from the room before another anguished breath tore through him.

It was no more than a wretch like himself deserved. 

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a tough chapter to write, as you can imagine. My plan is to make the next two or three a bit happier, if you can imagine that.
> 
> I remembered after writing the previous chapter that Bilbo refers to Old Toby as "the finest weed in the South Farthing" in the film of _The Fellowship of the Ring_. Since that didn't seem like a likely thing for him to say after these events, I figured I should clear the good name of Old Toby in this installment by saying that Bofur actually smoked his own experimental blend of pipeweed. 
> 
> And as a disclaimer, Gruffo Boffin is a hobbit from Tolkien's universe.


	27. Nights of Story and Song

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bilbo and Bofur find a way to boost each other’s spirits as Bofur takes a turn for the worse.

The couple shared something of a reconciliation that night. Bofur pulled Bilbo close to him in bed, showing a strength that the hobbit thought had been lost to him, and he murmured apology after apology into one of those pointy ears for all of the crushing things he had said that afternoon. Bilbo assured him that there was nothing to forgive, and he apologized in turn for thinking the same thing long before it was said. They lulled each other to sleep after that with a mutual promise to be stronger for one another, as well as for Frodo.

Another setback befell them just a few weeks later, when Bofur lost his ability to speak. 

He still possessed his voice, and he could make small sounds with it from time to time, but any attempt to speak would result in him coughing up more blood. That would have been the end of all verbal communications with him had it not been for Bilbo teaching him to write so many years ago. The dwarf spent his days with a quill in his hand and a stack of parchment on his lap, always ready to start a conversation.

He started such a conversation late one evening, as Bilbo sat with him in bed reading a book to him. It was where the hobbit had come to spend most of his time, at least when Frodo wasn’t keeping Bofur company; the older halfling didn’t like to leave his partner unattended for too long when the dwarf could no longer call for aid. Since there was little that they could do to pass the days anymore, and since Mr. Baggins spent so much of their time together reading words on a page anyway, they had agreed it would be nice if he shared some of his old favorite stories out loud. At the very least, it would give them something to smile about in each other’s presence.

Bofur sat and listened to that night’s tale for as long as he could, then something that had been weighing on his mind found its way onto his paper. He tapped Bilbo’s arm and pointed to what he had written when he was finished.

_Whose ring was it?_

The halfling looked up at him with a good-natured expression. 

“What do you mean?” He tapped one finger against Bofur’s sapphire ring. “I ordered that ring to be made just for you, _Abanul_. It’s never belonged to anyone but you.”

His bedmate hesitated, not content with this answer, and scrawled another note to clarify his question.

_I meant the ring in your pocket._

Bilbo’s good-natured expression fell away abruptly when he read that.

He needed some time to let the truth of the matter sink in. Bofur knew his secret. His sweetheart had somehow discovered it, though how he had managed that eluded the hobbit. Had he happened upon it in the desk drawer? Could he have grown wise to its existence even sooner than that? How long had his love been withholding this knowledge while he, Bilbo, had been nervously trying to keep his own “secret” under wraps?

As if reading his thoughts, Bofur’s hand moved in to write something else.

_You woke me the other day. I saw you put it there when you left our room._

Bilbo sighed. He supposed he was hardly the person in a position to question the other’s honesty.

The hobbit had to work up some courage before he could look at Bofur. He expected to find a grim, accusing look waiting for him, but instead, he found one filled with remorse, fear, and the tiniest hint of acceptance. It occurred to him then what his lover’s concern was. Bofur thought that the plain, golden band, similar in look to the wedding bands of the Brandybucks, was a memento from a previous relationship of Bilbo’s.

The halfling tried to put the question to bed with a dash of humor. “Well...it was definitely no one’s that you ever needed envy.”

Bofur continued waiting and staring, unsatisfied.

Bilbo cleared his throat and shifted about where he sat. “The truth is that it’s no wedding band, at least not as far as I’m aware. I never gave it to anyone, nor was it ever given to me. You could say that...I won it.” 

_Won it how?_ Bofur wrote oddly. 

“Well...the way that most prizes are won. By besting someone in a game.”

It was sad, perhaps, that being so honest felt so strange to the hobbit. Still, he was as honest as he could bring himself to be about his riddle game with Gollum. He recalled as many of the riddles as well as he could, and he told Bofur of his run from the creature who had not been so observant of what had been in his pocket. The only thing he left out was any mention of the ring’s powers; his best guess as to why was that divulging those powers might raise more questions that his dwarf was better off not knowing.

The retelling of course piqued Bofur’s interest, and it left him curious to hear others. Bilbo appeased that curiosity the next night with the story of how he had infiltrated Thranduil’s palace in Mirkwood, which naturally pleased the mountaineer to no end. 

_It must be a real challenge for elves to see a fellow your height with their noses so high in the air,_ Bofur quipped at one point.

“Yes, well, it helped that I didn’t dance on any tables or dive naked into any fountains while I was poking about,” Bilbo bantered back. “Elves can’t _stop_ staring at a fellow who does those sort of things.”

 _Mirkwood’s loss,_ Bofur wrote with a shrug.

That made for their first laugh in months, albeit a subdued one. That rising cheer carried with them into the next day nonetheless, where it caught Frodo’s attention.

“He has color in his face again,” the youth commented optimistically to Bilbo as he helped his uncle to make breakfast.

“That’s because there’s heart in him again, my lad,” the older hobbit replied with a knowing smile.

That night brought the tale of Bilbo’s fateful meeting with Smaug in Erebor, as well as his and the dwarves’ failed attempt to defeat the dragon afterwards. The little burglar rushed a bit through the fourth night’s story of him sneaking into the men and elves’ campsite give the Arkenstone to Bard, but he filled the rest of those hours with more pleasant memories of their quest. Those recollections lasted him and his partner through to the end of the week.

It did the halfling more good than he expected to speak so much of his adventure. The pain and the grief of it was still there, looming over every word, but its shadow only fell on some of them. He could enjoy the earlier anecdotes—the days of wandering, the encounter with the three trolls in Trollshaw, their company’s stay in Rivendell—and even some chapters as late as their sneaking around in Laketown raised the corners of his mouth. It was the same feeling that had overtaken the half-Took on his sprint across the fields beyond the Old Forest on his and Bofur’s anniversary: the feeling of youthful freedom, and the feeling of having no worries or regrets.

It was the feeling of being alive.

The final night of his account ended with Bofur divulging something. A few minutes after Bilbo ran out of stories to tell, one of the dwarf’s hands slipped into the crook of the hobbit’s arm to get his attention. The other hand slid a piece of paper already covered with writing into his Acorn’s fingers.

Bilbo looked at the note. He regarded the way its phrases were listed one at a time and divided into three blocks, and he came to realize that they were actually song lyrics. He lifted questioning eyes to Bofur, who responded by leaning towards him along the headboard with a calm smile and sliding his larger arms around that smaller waist.

A bearded chin settled on Bilbo’s shoulder next. Things were quiet for a second, then to the surprise of Mr. Baggins, his partner began to hum in his ear. The voice was thin and whispy, far from the ringing tenor it had boasted in its glory days, but it carried a tune that the hobbit’s hearing could detect. It was vaguely recognizable, a tune that he had heard sparingly long ago, and he understood to read the lyrics in his hand along to it. He and Bofur were barely through the first verse when he figured out what the piece was.

 _Oh, all the coin that I have spent,_  
_Was spent among good company_  
_And all the harm that I have done,_  
_Alas was done to none but me_  
_And all I’ve done to boast my wit,_  
_Those memories now I can’t recall_  
_So raise for me the farewell cup,_  
_Good night and joy be with you all_

 _Of all the friends that I have made,_  
_They’re sad to see me go away_  
_And all the hearts that I have won,_  
_They bid me one more day to stay_  
_But since it falls unto our lot,_  
_That I must go while you must not_  
_I’ll gently rise and softly call,_  
_Good night and joy be with you all_

 _If I had coin enough to spend,_  
_And leisure time to stay a while,_  
_There is a fair maid in this town,_  
_Who surely has my heart beguiled_  
_Her rosy cheeks and ruby lips,_  
_I own they have my soul in thrall_  
_So raise for me the farewell cup,_  
_Good night and joy be with you all_

Bofur’s voice faded and lost the tune somewhat towards the very end. It made his serenade sound no less beautiful to Bilbo. The deeply moved hobbit turned his head to meet the dwarf’s gaze. They took one look into each other’s shimmering, smiling eyes and leaned in to touch foreheads. The smaller being turned the rest of himself towards his lover after another tender pause, then he took the other into his arms and guided Bofur’s head down to lie safely against his chest.

A song of his own came to Bilbo as he held his dear one. It borrowed the tempo of “The Farewell Cup” and just a bit of the melody, but the words were entirely his creation. He sang them ever so quietly as his cheek nestled into that dark hair, and for just a few moments, he and Bofur forgot about pain and knew only peace.

_The Road goes ever on and on,_  
_Down from the door where it began_  
_Now far ahead the Road has gone,_  
_And I must follow, if I can,_  
_Pursuing it with eager feet,_  
_Until it joins some larger way,_  
_Where many paths and errands meet_  
_And whither then? I cannot say..._

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I’ve said before, the song that Bofur sings, “The Farewell Cup,” is a slight re-wording of the Scotch-Irish folksong “The Parting Glass.” I tried to model it after the most common version of the song, as several variations exist.
> 
> Bilbo’s song at the end is of course “The Road Goes Ever On” from the book and film of _The Fellowship of the Ring_. I was debating between that and maybe a verse of “The Last Goodbye,” but I chose the former since it does sound vaguely like “The Parting Glass” to me and is a song that Bilbo actually sings.


	28. An Honorable Gathering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bag End receives several very unexpected visitors.

One month before their forty-first anniversary, Bilbo surprised Bofur with an early gift. It arrived at Bag End late in the evening, as the hobbits of the house were readying for supper, and after some talk with the gentleman who had delivered it, the endowment was sent straight back to its ailing recipient.

Bofur had heard the hint of commotion from across the house, along with a couple of soft-spoken voices that plainly weren’t Bilbo’s or Frodo’s. Neither sounded like the voice of any hobbit, for that matter. As the sound of them neared his bedroom door, joined by the floor-shaking footfalls beneath them, the irrational optimist within the dwarf began to recognize them. He tried to dissuade this belief until his door swung open to reveal his first visitor.

His optimism won the night when he took in the sight of that bulging girth and red beard.

“ _Bom_ —” Bofur exclaimed automatically.

The effort left him hacking and heaving in his bed. The entire room shuddered around him as the other figure rushed to his side, then a meaty set of arms twice the width of his own wound around him. He went from coughing to gawking when his face was almost buried in that bushy, ginger hair.

“It’s alright,” Bombur’s voice insisted in his ear with a trembling laugh. His voice bore the same light brogue that Bofur’s had. “We’re here. We’re both really here, brother.”

Still gaping over his sibling’s shoulder in shock, the weaker mountaineer saw his second visitor enter the room. There wasn’t a black hair left anywhere on the older figure’s head or in his beard, but there was no mistaking the wizened face and the deeply scarred forehead of his elder cousin Bifur. 

It was seeing him that finally made everything sink in with Bofur, and he pulled himself back as best as he could to see Bombur’s face. His own face crinkled in joyful relief until he toppled back against his brother with a shudder. By the end of it, all three dwarves were huddled together on the bed with their arms around each other and their foreheads resting together. 

“Take it easy now, lad,” Bifur assured as he grasped his frail younger cousin. “We’ve got you.”

Bilbo only peeked at them through the door, then he left them to their tender reunion. He retreated through the study and into the hallway, where a slightly dazed Frodo stood waiting for him. The older Baggins smiled at his nephew, then guided him back to the kitchen alongside the dwarves’ deliverer, Gandalf the Grey.

* * *

The surprise had been several months in the making. The very next day after Bofur’s diagnosis, Bilbo had gone to his desk and composed a pair of letters. One had been addressed to the Prancing Pony in Bree where it would eventually be given to Gandalf while the other, testing the old hobbit’s memory, had been addressed to Erebor just like the contract that Bofur had mailed back to Glóin over four decades ago. Both letters had explained his partner’s frightful situation and implored that his old friends make haste to Hobbiton. 

Mr. Baggins had said nothing of the letters to Bofur out of fear that their visitors might not reach Bag End in time, if they even received those letters in time. He was hopeful, though still not very fond of taking risks. Telling Bofur that his family might be coming could have given his _Abanul_ some extra strength, but if it weren’t enough, the guilt of thinking that he might let down his brother and cousin as well could have crushed the dwarf’s spirit in his very last days. 

For as much as a part of him had been waiting for it, Gandalf, Bifur, and Bombur’s arrival had still come as quite a surprise to Bilbo. It came as an even bigger surprise to him when another band of familiar faces showed up at his door later that same night.

The hobbit had known upon writing his letter to Erebor that Bifur and Bombur would likely need someone else to read it to them. That someone had apparently been Glóin, who had then told Nori of what he had read. From there, Nori had passed the news of Bofur along to Dori, who had then shared it with Dwalin. Gossip, evidently, wasn’t such an unheard of thing beyond the Shire after all. 

That chain of troubling reports had ended on the ear of Dain Ironfoot. Without delay, the King Under the Mountain had freed Thorin Oakenshield’s company from their duties long enough for them to journey west and stay with their waning friend. Bofur was one of Erebor’s reclaimers—a great hero among dwarves, whether he would believe it or not—and someone of his medal deserved to have equally honorable comrades beside him in his time of need. 

It had been by fortunate chance that the company was passing through Bree on the same day that Gandalf had turned up at the Prancing Pony to read his letter. Something in the wizard had told him the dwarves weren’t far, and after finding them on the town’s western edge, he had invited Bifur and Bombur to journey on ahead with him. There had been no objection to Bofur’s kin reaching Bag End sooner than the rest of his visitors.

All of this information was given to Bilbo, along with many elated greetings and thank-yous for his invitation, as his second wave of guests flooded into his house. He was seated on his mother’s glory box next to the door in a royal daze by the time Dwalin, the final company member from Erebor, stepped over the threshold. 

A third and still greater surprise came instantly after that, when Balin trailed his younger brother into the entrance hall with a call of excitement to the hobbit. The final dwarves to file in after the white-bearded Lord of Moria, to Bilbo’s complete shock, were his chief medic Óin and his head scribe, dear Ori. Whatever explanation was given for their presence, most likely that the company from Erebor had passed through the mines on their way and regained their final three members, those words were lost to the reeling Mr. Baggins.

Overwhelmed as he was, the host was gracious enough to return their greetings and introduce his nephew to his seven other companions. It was hard to miss the spark of intrigue in Frodo’s eyes as he recognized more of the names from his uncles’ stories.

Bofur, to say the least, had recognition in his eyes as well when the entire lot of them stepped into his bedroom. His eyes swam with it in fact, particularly when Ori was brought to his bedside. He enveloped the younger dwarf in his arms for a length of time that could have rivaled Dori and Nori’s embraces for their little brother upon their reunion.

Bilbo peeked in on the gathering from the study once more. If the other dwarves took notice of him, nothing was said, and he wasn’t asked to come in either. The hobbit supposed it was ludicrous of him to expect permission to enter his own bedroom, but after forty-one years of having Bofur largely to himself, he also supposed it was his turn to stay back. What mattered was the delight that his partner clearly felt to be surrounded by friends and family again, as well as the inclusion that Frodo felt whenever a mountaineer or two would emerge to converse with the boy.

The master of the house himself retired to the diningroom. There he sat across from Gandalf with a table full of flowers in vases crowded between them. The flowers were gifts to show support; it hadn’t taken long after the selling of the toyshop for word of Bofur’s illness to spread to the town’s far corners, and the friends who had heard had virtually turned Bag End’s doorstep into a second garden by the end of the week. There had even been a vase apiece from Pollo and Wilibold, though it was the assortment from Hamfast, speckled with bright blue bunches of forget-me-nots, that Bofur had chosen to keep in the bedroom at all times.

Bilbo fiddled with a deep pink tulip in front of him as he spoke to the wizard.

“He’s happy now,” he noted. “Happier than I’ve seen him in months.”

Gandalf eyed the halfling tactfully over the forest of petals. “How has he fared otherwise?”

“As well as he can, as has Frodo.”

“And how have _you_ fared?”

Bilbo stopped, then lowered his fingers from the tulip. “As well as they’ve needed me to.”

The other gave a slight nod and sat up taller in his seat. “Do not take the others’ lack of attention towards you as coldness, Bilbo. They do not blame you for Bofur’s absence from Erebor.”

Bilbo’s fingers found their way to his courting braid next, positive that the dwarves had spotted and recognized it.

“They are simply concerned for him,” Gandalf went on, “and they must show their concerns for him right now. You are still a good friend among them, and you are still very much welcome in the Lonely Mountain.”

A humorless laugh slipped from the hobbit at the sound of that awful nickname. “Do you think I should return to it with them after...”

Bilbo’s chin shook, and the best he could do to finish the thought was to throw up his hand in a limp presenting gesture.

“I am certain they will invite you and Frodo to join them when that time comes,” Gandalf affirmed with care, “and I do believe that it may help both of you to leave this sadness for a time.” 

The wizard’s gaze became more direct. “I believe it may help you especially.”

The smaller figure kept his gaze down and unfocused. “How can I go back without Bofur? After all the years that we’ve discussed taking that road together, how can I take it after burying him here?” 

It took an aching push to get his next sentiment out. “How can I take that road again after losing someone else dear to me that I met upon it?”

Gandalf never missed a beat. “By thinking of the friends you still have, who will be with you on that road.”

Bilbo’s curly head dropped into his hand at that. “But...but _Bofur_ , Gandalf...”

The last of the hobbit’s brave front fell away then, taking the meaning of every word and lyric about strength that he had uttered that past week with it. The quietest of sobs escaped him before his other hand covered his mouth. Gandalf was ready for this breakdown, and he moved around to the chair beside Bilbo’s without delay. The wizard kept up his calm vigil all the while. 

“You are speaking from grief tonight, Bilbo,” he acknowledged, bracing those trembling shoulders with his arm. “I will not ask you to speak from anything else, nor will I dismiss your reluctance to run out your door so soon. All I ask is that you not dismiss ever running out of it again. 

“Think of the _good_ that has come from the last time you braved the outside world. Think of the decades of joy, of _love_ that you have spent with one that you met by taking such a chance. Surely there is still good to be found on that road to the East.”

A quieter breath rippled through the halfling, though he remained far from convinced.

Gandalf patted his back lightly and persisted. “Has he ever told you of where he will go when he takes his leave of this world?”

Bilbo had just enough strength left to bob his head. “Mahal’s table.”

His wise mentor leaned in, and when he spoke, he spoke with a voice not so different from the tone Bilbo had used when first speaking to Frodo of death. 

“That is the destination, yes, but there is also a journey. All of us who pass from this life sail from white shores and across seas of silver glass into the West, and under the light of a pale moon will we reach the halls of our makers.” 

He gripped the hobbit’s shoulder a little to ensure his attention. “There will always be a journey in your future, my dear Bilbo, and a destination filled with waiting friends and loved ones. Perhaps you should prepare yourself for it while you can.”

For the first time since their conversation began, Mr. Baggins lifted his face to look at the wizard.

The clomp of heavy boots behind them made the two pull apart and turn partially. The stocky figure of Balin, coated in armor as red as his old robe, came into the diningroom right after that. He paused in the doorway with a grandfatherly smile, then as he approached Bilbo, a piece of Bofur’s writing paper could be seen in one of his gloved hands.

“I don’t mean to interrupt, laddie,” he told the hobbit, “but I was given a message to deliver.”

He gave the paper to his host, who laughed again from a sharp pang of nostalgia when he read the note on it.

_Where’s Bilbo?_

He composed himself then, and with a last comforting pat on his shoulder from Gandalf, the hobbit allowed his other bearded friend to lead him back to the bedroom.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was originally just going to have Bifur and Bombur visit in this chapter, but after everything poor Bofur's been through, I decided to bring the whole group back together. :) I've added Balin to the story's character list since he actually gets a line here.
> 
> Gandalf's description of the journey to the next world is derived from the lyrics of "Into the West" from the _Return of the King_ soundtrack.


	29. Parting Without Regrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The couple tries to make the most of their last days together while Bofur does his best to ensure brighter days for Bilbo in the future.

Just as last time, Bag End barely had the room to contain a wizard and an entire company of dwarves. Bilbo and his guests did their best to make it work all the same. The ones who could fit filled the guest bedroom while the rest made camp on the floor in various other rooms. Gandalf made his resting spot on the couch in the study, not just for its proximity to Bilbo and Bofur’s room in case they should need the wizard, but also because it was the only comfortable piece of furniture in the house that could hold his towering form. The most peculiar sight of all was the front yard, which looked more like a pen with the horse and nine ponies that were tied to the inside of its fence.

How long things would remain this way depended on Bofur. For as long as he was alive, his old friends would be there for him. To the worry of everyone, it became clearer and clearer over the following week that the other dwarves would not have call to be there for much longer.

It was as plain to Bofur as it was to everyone else that his health was declining more rapidly. That was why, in the first private moment he could find in the company of all their visitors, he slipped Bilbo another note with a very simple question written on it.

By the next day, October the first, the couple had arranged for Gandalf to perform their marriage.

The wedding was by no means traditional. It was neither a dwarvish nor hobbit ceremony, yet it contained elements of each. The only guests were Frodo and the dwarves, none of whom was surprised to be invited to such an occasion for their friend and Mr. Baggins. They gathered quietly behind the wizard at the foot of the couple’s bed. Bilbo and Bofur sat together at its head, and in their hair were threaded dozens of pansies, forget-me-nots, and fiery-colored autumn leaves freshly fallen from their oak tree.

Their “matching” tokens were also proudly on display, and as Gandalf recited the ages-old sanction in Khuzdul—with no small amount of help from Bifur and the rest of the congregation—they gradually added another braid to each other’s hair on the left side. These and their courting braids were then tied back around one another’s heads to form circlets. Bofur did as much of the honors as he could, but he could barely lift his arms to even attempt to weave Bilbo’s tresses. The halfling had to do most of the braiding and tying for both of them. Fortunately, he had grown practiced enough with dwarf hair by then to do it with competence.

They exchanged their vows in the common tongue, as Shirefolk did. Each of them repeated the words after Gandalf, even though Bofur could only mouth them to Bilbo without a sound. When their promises were completed and the final blessing was given, the secret couple from Bag End fully bound themselves to each other with a kiss and a touch of their foreheads. 

Bilbo clung to his new husband in a shared bliss, letting Bofur lean heavily against him, until the applause was over. They turned with smiles to Frodo then and beckoned their nephew over to join them in their delightful moment. Bifur and Bombur were invited next, and the rest of their company was thrilled to close in around the pair afterwards. 

Their wedding night was far from the evening of splendid passion that most spouses strove for. It was no less romantic, however. Bilbo began by picking the flowers and leaves from their hair while singing an idle tune. When that was done, he laid down his dwarf, leaning over him and helping Bofur to hold him in turn, and he delicately kissed and caressed that lean, scruffy face until his new husband fell asleep.

Night was the only time that the newlyweds were left alone with each other following their matrimony. Frodo, Gandalf, and the dwarves stayed close to Bofur as well throughout the day, becoming more fearful to leave his side as he grew weaker and less responsive. They would remain seated around his bed with stomachs even emptier than his until the rays of sunlight through the window shutters tuned to more shadows. That was when they would bid the couple—now _both_ named Mr. Baggins, they supposed—a good night and retire to their own resting spots.

Bilbo spent much of those nights lying awake with a hand on Bofur’s chest while the other slept. For as long as he heard that soft snoring beside him and felt that faint heartbeat pulsing under his hand, the hobbit knew his love was still with him. That sense of security allowed his eyes to wander their bedroom and his thoughts to wander the countless memories that he and the mountaineer had made in it.

He remembered the night they had first made plans to return to Erebor. They had sat together in that very same bed, smoking their pipes while they talked and feeling nothing but promise for their future. They had sat together again in that bed one month later as they had struggled to absorb the deaths of Drogo and Primula. They had also lay there together weeks before that, when he had tried to console Bofur after Ori’s early morning departure for the Blue Mountains.

Bilbo recalled the night when Drogo had rescued Bofur from the Ivy Bush and helped put him to bed, the night when the younger Baggins had said that the couple’s secret was safe with him. There was also the time when Bilbo had lashed out at Bofur for rummaging through their bedroom laundry hamper, as well as the infinitely worse fight where he had struck his _Abanul_ in the cheek. But then there were the amends they had made the next evening, when he had finally given his partner his full trust by letting the dwarf “take” him.

There were so many other pleasant memories. He remembered the day when they had sat together on that bed and playfully given each other their courting braids. Before that, there had been that wonderful evening when Bofur had carried him into that room, singing to him with a smile, and laid him down on that bed to guide him through his very first time making love. And then there were his most beloved memories of all, those earliest mornings of their courtship when they had woken snuggled together after nights of trying to mind their boundaries, and he had come to realize how safe and how right he felt with Bofur.

The halfling’s heart was light with this reminiscing on the third night when his bedmate suddenly rolled over towards him. They were lying on their sides and facing each other now, with Bilbo on the right and Bofur on the left as always. The larger being brought forth his quill with a few sheets of his paper and found the energy to write another note.

_What will you do when I’m gone?_

Bilbo lifted his head to stare at the question. He recognized that inquiry all too well, but not from Bofur. The sheepish glint of irony in the other’s green eyes told him that his dwarf recognized it too. The hobbit swallowed hard and steadied his voice, then he took his spouse’s much larger hand and said what he knew he should say.

“I’ll stay here with Frodo, and I’ll be strong. I won’t waste away in misery again. I’ll be brave, too. I’ll tell everyone in the Shire about our adventure to the Lonely Mountain, Bofur. I’ll make sure they all know—”

Bofur smiled and raised the other hand to stop him kindly. The dwarf knew his Acorn all too well. With a twitch of his wrist, he freed his writing hand and set to work inscribing yet another note. Bilbo felt the lump in his throat return as he read along.

_Do whatever makes you happy, wherever, whenever, and with whomever, Bilbo Baggins._

The mountaineer ended his composition by drawing a line along the bottom of the paper. He held his quill out to Bilbo then. The halfling covered his mouth in a swell of distress when he understood. He was being asked to sign a contract, to make a promise, and Bofur was leaving no room in it for loopholes.

“I should go back to Erebor,” Bilbo guessed nervously. “Is that it?”

Bofur shook his head and tapped his finger on the word “wherever.” 

It took everything for Bilbo not to break down again right there. He drew in a breath that rattled through him, and he needed a long time to gather himself before he could look at Bofur. Once he saw his husband’s encouraging, beckoning beam, he didn’t hesitate to take the quill.

His hand was almost as shaky as Bofur’s when he signed his name. It looked like the signature of a fauntling still learning how to write when he was done, but it was good enough for his dwarf. Bofur accepted his quill back in exchange for the makeshift contract, which he nudged towards the hobbit. 

Bilbo pulled the paper the rest of the way and held it firmly to his chest, adding weight to his promise. The couple met each other’s gazes and smiled to confirm what had just transpired between them. Bilbo broke that pause by reaching out to cradle his dear one’s head in his hands, and with the same chaste innocence that Bofur had given him in their first kiss, he leaned in and slowly pressed their lips together. 

Late the following afternoon, with his husband, his nephew, his brother, his cousin, and eight of his closest friends seated around him, Bofur closed his eyes for the last time.

* * *

And so it was that the courtship of Bilbo Baggins and Bofur of the Blue Mountains ended the same way that it had begun: with a dwarvish funeral.

It was a modest service compared to the proceedings that had been held for Thorin, Fíli, and Kíli, though it was no small affair. Several Brandybucks and Tooks had been invited to attend it, including Frodo’s friends Meriadoc and Peregrin. Rorimac and Seredic were also there. Hamfast, Bell, and young Sam were present as well, as were Gruffo Boffins, Pollo Foxburr, and Wilibold Knotwise. The entire lot of them gathered on the hill overlooking Bag End that evening, and two Bagginses, nine dwarves, and a wizard stood together at the center of that gathering with the open casket before them.

Bofur had been dressed every bit like the mountaineer that he was for the occasion. He wore his old yellow coat and his even older boots, and the ends of his favorite blue scarf were draped down over his shoulders beside his wolf fang earring and his long, braided pigtails. He also wore his hat as a last laugh to those who had felt he should have worn it less in life. It had been Bilbo’s suggestion to do so, and Bofur had loved the idea.

The dwarf could have been sleeping, so tranquil and content he looked in his casket. He lay with his hands crossed over his chest and his sapphire ring gleaming proudly on his finger. Bilbo had insisted that he keep it on; the ring had been made for him and no one else, and it was only right that the gift should remain in his possession. The couple had decided differently for his acorn pin, and so the bronze token shined on the lapel of Frodo's waistcoat that evening.

Like Thorin, the former toymaker also held another possession in his hands. It was wrapped in his old “handkerchief” that his spouse had returned to him, concealed from onlookers, and its identity had been kept a secret from every hobbit but Bilbo in attendance, Frodo included. Balin had told the boy that it was a sacred custom for dwarves to be buried with their talisman shrouded, so that the deceased would carry a secret piece of knowledge with them into the next world. 

In truth, the item was Bofur’s pipe, and he hadn’t wanted his nephew to see it since it was likely the reason that he needed a funeral held to begin with. It might have seemed selfish that he would wish to be buried with it at all under those circumstances, but he had preferred not to leave it lying around where someone else could find it and decide to use it.

His clarinet had been left to Bifur. The older dwarf quietly mourned beside Bilbo and Frodo, cradling the wooden instrument in his arms. It crushed the others to think that he had likely held Bofur as an infant the same way nearly two centuries ago. The powerful looking mattock that Ori held next to him brought back other emotional memories. 

The scribe no longer needed his brothers to brace him as he watched the somber scene, though he clutched Bofur’s weapon to his chest for security much like he had with his journal at Thorin’s service. The hands that he grasped it with were now clad in Bofur’s old gray mittens instead of his own. Bombur stood among the row of dwarves as well, wearing the multi-colored scarf that his brother had worn on their quest over fifty years ago.

He adjusted the wool garment as daintily as if it was made of lace as he stepped forth from the row, and it was with the heaviest yet softest of voices that he edged into the evening’s eulogy. 

“My dear elder brother Bofur said to me once, when we were little more than lads, that if he were ever to attend a funeral, he hoped that it would be as the one being laid to rest. That way, he could be the center of attention, everyone would be forced to say nice things about him, and he wouldn’t have to worry about doing anything he wasn’t supposed to...except move, of course.”

He attempted to smile at the recollection, but his rich blue eyes couldn’t quite put on the same charm as his mouth. 

“He told me himself to open with that. My brother always had a talent for finding humor in what some would call inappropriate places, and while he was not terribly proud for the likes of a dwarf, he did pride himself of that talent a great deal. He never cared much for serious moments. He thought that life had too many of them. 

“He also never cared much for silence, but the thing he cared for least of all was having regrets; regrets for not speaking his mind when he had something funny or kind to say, or regrets for the opposite; regrets for not doing everything that he possibly could to help someone, especially someone close to him; and regrets for parting on ill terms. Believe me when I say, good friends, that when Bofur left this world, his heart held no memory of regret. 

“His only hope was that we would not think of his parting from us as a farewell, but rather, as an ‘until our next meeting.’ My brother would not ask you, me, or anyone else to be sad in the meantime. He would want us to be joyful, and to live our lives to the fullest—if not for our own sakes, then for the sake of having better stories to tell when we meet him again.”

A gleam of happy warmth found its way into Bombur’s features before he concluded.

“If the tales that he and I were told as lads are true...if a table waits for us in the halls of our fathers, where we are to sit and feast with Mahal the Smith or Eru the One when we part from this world, then I believe...it is now a merrier table to sit and feast at, and it will be that merry still when our time comes to sit and feast at it too. But until then, on behalf of my brother Bofur, I wish all of you good night...and joy be with you all.”

He went forward to stand beside the casket then, and kneeling as gracefully as he could, he bent down to touch his forehead to Bofur’s. He rose and moved back so that Bifur could give the same parting gesture, followed by Frodo. 

Bilbo was the last person to kneel and bend down to the casket. What came over him as he began to lift his brow from Bofur’s, he didn’t wish to guess. He only knew that he was looking upon his _Abanul_ for what would be the last time, and so he leaned in to place the lightest kiss on Bofur’s lips.

If any of the hobbits surrounding him saw it or minded, he cared not.

Óin and Glóin stepped in after that. Once they closed the casket, Ori joined them and placed the mattock over top of it. From there, the three of them guided Bilbo and the others back to rejoin the rest of their company. 

Bifur raised Bofur’s clarinet to his lips at that point. As he played the tune of “The Farewell Cup” on his cousin’s instrument, the scores of other guests proceeded past the casket in a line to lay white, pink, and purple bundles of forget-me-nots over the mattock. Bilbo, Frodo, Gandalf, and the dwarves came in at the end of the line to place blue bundles on top of the pile. 

Balin, Dwalin, Dori, and Nori took up the casket when that was done. They carried it a short distance to the grave that had been dug, and with a harmony that no one would have thought possible among four fellows of such different stature, they lowered it reverently into the earth. The company finished by burying their late friend, then they and all of his other mourners left him to rest as the sun sank down behind that hill.

Gandalf and the dwarves set out from Bag End three days later. As predicted, they invited Bilbo and Frodo to join them on their return to Erebor. When both hobbits declined the offer but thanked the company for it from the bottom of their hearts, the thirteen of them instead traded as many fond good-byes as time permitted. Mr. Baggins sat with his nephew on the bench in front of their house as they watched that horse and nine ponies bear their companions away into the eastern horizon.

Later that month, on the day of his and Bofur’s forty-first anniversary, the Master of Bag End undid his marriage braids, removed his stone pendant, took up his red journal from Rivendell, and locked those items away with his other mementos in the trunk in his study.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had thrown around so many ideas to explain why Bofur wasn't in Hobbiton anymore by the time of _Fellowship of the Ring_ , but no matter how I looked at it, it felt wrong of him to willingly leave Frodo. In the end, I decided that the only acceptable way to write him out of this story would be to have him pass away. 
> 
> I also had to set up why Bilbo's red book was locked away in a trunk by the start of _An Unexpected Journey_ and why we don't see his braids or pendant in the movies when he's older. Bilbo in the films is a very slow healer, as we've seen...


	30. Foundations and Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bilbo does his best to stay strong in the years following Bofur's death and eventually makes a very important decision.

The next nine years brought yet another change to Bilbo Baggins, though whether it was a change for the better or the worse, no one could be certain. Not even Frodo.

The first year following Bofur’s death had been the hardest. Bilbo kept his composure around his nephew and was certainly there to show him support, but the widower said little about anything, let alone about his late spouse. He seemed to have difficulty looking at Frodo when the lad wore Bofur’s acorn pin, so the token of remembrance hardly left its place in the younger hobbit’s nightstand drawer. 

There was also more than one occasion where Frodo swore he could hear the fractured tune of his old lullaby in the middle of the night. He came to guess that his poor uncle was humming it brokenly to himself in the master bedroom. Nothing was ever said of those incidents during the day, but the youth took it upon himself to keep a closer eye on Bilbo. Which of them was the guardian and which of them was the other’s charge became a rather abstract thing over time.

True to his word though, the older Baggins gradually emerged from his silent bereavement to speak of their adventures. He only had the heart to tell pieces of his own account to Frodo, saying nothing of his ring, of course, and he eventually gave his nephew permission to pass those extra anecdotes along. As expected, those stories found their way from one end of the Shire to the other in no time. The tales intrigued some listeners but troubled a great deal more, and the gallivanting Mad Baggins soon became even less highly thought of throughout Hobbiton.

This drop in favor with many of his elders and peers suited Bilbo just fine. Unfortunately, those younger than him—which by then was nearly everyone in the Shire—took it upon themselves to romanticize some of those tales. Whispers of the supposed riches beyond count that were buried under his hill and the equally supposed immortality that Gandalf had hexed him with would often fill his pointed ears whenever he ventured into town. It was thanks to his ever-patient nephew that he seldom had need to take up such ventures anymore.

It came as no surprise to Bilbo that the Sackville-Bagginses resumed dogging him after Bofur’s passing. There was no one left for either of them to fear in Bag End, which gave them the illusion of courage again. Lobelia would come knocking and shouting like she used to in the days before the Incident at the Door. Also like in those days, Mr. Baggins would ignore and evade her. It was only when she brought Otho with her that the Master of Bag End would make use of his magic ring, either to better conceal himself in his home or to slip out of it unseen and leave the pesky pair knocking in vain for hours.

Indeed, those nine years taught Bilbo all over again to see most of his fellow Shirelings as nuisances. About the only company he was happy to have was Hamfast, who had come to be known around town as the Gaffer, Seredic Brandybuck, and Rorimac on the few occasions when Old Rory Brandybuck would visit Hobbiton. Everyone else was tolerated at best, and for good reason in Bilbo’s eyes.

Frodo, in contrast, remained well liked and happy in the Shire. How the lad managed that without turning into a closed-minded whisperer himself was beyond his uncle, but seeing his boy so content made Bilbo content enough for the time being as well. He was sure it would have also put a smile on Bofur’s face. 

As far as the younger Baggins could tell, memories of the late dwarf and their adventures together were Bilbo’s one true solace. It was only when the elder spoke of those things that his warmth fleetingly shined through his grim mask again. Rarely would he speak of those things to Frodo, however; he would sit alone, sometimes in his armchair, sometimes on the bench in his garden, sometimes on his bed, and he would murmur pleasantly to himself about all of the trouble he and Bofur had gotten into when they had first met. 

Those reflections would often drift to ramblings of all the times that the two of them had considered going back to Erebor to escape from the Shirefolk. Bilbo would usually snap out of his daydreaming then and scuttle back to whatever he had been doing before he had sat down. He would soon slip back into his usual grumblings about the neighbors after that, twitching and scowling with his hand in one pocket all the while.

Frodo began to sense something was afoot when his uncle first decided to throw a huge party for his one hundredth and eleventh birthday and invite half of the Shire. He became even more suspicious a few months later, on the day of that party. The thirty-three-year-old strolled into Bag End’s study that morning, carrying a hefty stack of invitation replies that had just arrived in the mail, and he found Bilbo’s trunk of mementos wide open with the old recluse writing away in his red journal at his desk.

The yellowed sketch of his uncle in his youth that lay beside that journal snared his curiosity in particular.

“What’s this?” Frodo asked with a grin as he picked up the sketch.

“ _That_ is private,” Bilbo retorted, swiping it away. “Keep your sticky paws off.”

As curious as his mentor, though, Frodo leaned in to steal a peek at what had been written in the open journal. His reward was the sight of that red leather cover snapping shut under his nose.

“It’s not ready yet,” Bilbo said, exasperated.

The other feigned disappointment. “Not ready for what?”

“Reading.”

That still wouldn’t discourage Frodo. Without a break in stride, the lad went to the trunk to start rummaging through it while he could. He was actually glad when their conversation turned to the Sackville-Bagginses. The notion of them demanding that Bilbo invite them in person to the party put the older halfling in such a fuss that he flew from the study altogether without batting another eye at the nosy boy.

“You know I caught her making off with the silverware once,” Bilbo muttered as he buzzed about the house, absently snatching up and hiding away various items.

“Who?” Frodo asked as he trailed him.

“Lobelia Sackville-Baggins! She had all my spoons stuffed in her pocket. Ha! Dreadful woman.”

Bilbo came into the kitchen and dumped an armful of his possessions onto the table to sort out. “Make sure you keep an eye on her when I’m...”

He caught himself just then and froze. It took more self control than he had shown in a while to keep his back to Frodo as he tried to recover from his slip-up.

“When I’m...When I’m...”

Frodo crept into the kitchen after him with a hint of a knowing look. “When you’re...what?”

“It’s nothing,” Bilbo swiftly dismissed.

That was when Frodo spoke his mind for the first time about his uncle’s behavior, informing him with care about how “odd” and “unsociable” the other townsfolk had come to find him. Bilbo scoffed at those ideas, then he handed his nephew a freshly written “No Admittance” sign and asked him to hang it on the front gate like a good lad. The other obliged, feeling that he had already said too much. 

When the sign was hung, Frodo set out for the day. He and Bilbo had been expecting Gandalf to turn up for days by then, bearing his cart full of fireworks for the party, and an unshakable Baggins hunch told the younger halfling to wait for him in the East Farthing. Bilbo saw the boy off with good cheer, but as soon as Frodo was gone from sight, the old hermit slunk back into his house to numb his misery with his magic ring, as he had done every day for the past nine years.

By four o’clock that afternoon, he had been presented with a much more therapeutic way of unleashing his woes.

“I’ve got to get away from these confounded relatives hanging on the bell all day, never giving me a moment’s peace!” Bilbo groaned to his houseguest while leering out through his diningroom window. “I want to see mountains again— _mountains_ , Gandalf—and then find somewhere quiet where I can finish my book.”

He switched moods at the drop of a hat when he looked to the steaming kettle in his kitchen fireplace. “Oh! Tea.”

The grey wizard watched him like an owl from the table as the hobbit dashed across the room.

“So you mean to go through with your plan, then?” he asked studiously.

“Yes, yes,” Bilbo said, turning from the fire to the table with his kettle. “It’s all in hand. All the arrangements are made.”

As the tea was poured, Gandalf peered up at his host from under his bushy eyebrows.

“Frodo suspects something,” the magic maker warned. He had engaged the lad in quiet a chat while driving his cart to Hobbiton that afternoon.

“Of course he does,” Bilbo clipped. “He’s a Baggins, not some blockheaded Bracegirdle from Hardbottle.”

“You will tell him, won’t you?”

Bilbo spun around and returned the kettle to the fireplace. “Yes, yes!”

“He’s very fond of you,” Gandalf said more gently.

The halfling’s fussiness fell away at that. In that moment, the old, quiet, thoughtful Bilbo returned, and all of his despondency and remorse was laid bare. His voice was as small as he was when he replied.

“I know. He’d probably go with me if I asked him. I think in his heart, Frodo is still in love with the Shire. The woods, the fields, little rivers...”

Bilbo gave a more wistful look out through his window. “I’m old, Gandalf. I know I don’t look it, but I’m beginning to feel it in my heart.”

His hand found its way into his pocket as he spoke. His mentor spied it as always while the smaller being came to sit at the table.

“I feel thin,” Bilbo elaborated for him. “Sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread. I need a holiday. A very long holiday, and I don’t expect I shall return.” 

His blue eyes seemed to darken as he glanced away. “In fact, I mean not to.”

This was no news to the wizard. He had heard as much from the letter that Bilbo had sent to the Prancing Pony months ago. What remained to be understood was the thing driving his dear friend to such a decision, and so with all of the sensitivity he had, Gandalf leaned in to ask. 

“And would this very long holiday be taken on your own behalf...or on behalf of someone else?”

A mist passed over those blue eyes. 

“Can it not be for Bofur _and_ myself?” Bilbo asked in a less steady tone. “So many other things that I did in my life were.”

For the first time in nine years, a much larger and stronger hand came to rest on his shoulder, and Mr. Baggins could do nothing but grasp it in turn as he fought back his tears.

* * *

Gandalf stayed in Bag End throughout the afternoon and evening, going over Bilbo’s plans again and helping him with the final preparations for the party. The two old friends spent their time after that reminiscing and quietly enjoying the late September weather. When the sun went down, they even sat smoking together on the bench in the garden, where they could see the tents and the stage set up on the Party Field below them.

For all of the grief that the Shire’s stronger pipeweeds may or may not have brought into his life, Bilbo still couldn’t bring himself to speak ill of Old Toby. Some of his fondest memories of Bofur had involved the two of them enjoying their pipes together, and he wasn’t going to deprive himself of one of the few reminders of his husband that he continued to enjoy. Eru knew the old schemer would need a little Old Toby to settle his nerves that night anyway.

It was shortly after his smoke with Gandalf and right before he changed his clothes for the party that the hobbit journeyed over to the next hill to visit Bofur’s grave.

He had added a headstone to the site since the funeral. It had been his way of further honoring the mountaineer’s dwarvish roots while keeping to their tradition of displaying their love for each other without the other Shirelings recognizing it. Only a worldly scholar versed in Khuzdul would have known that the runes etched into its surface bore the toymaker’s name and the message, “The foundation where my heart stands strong.”

Bilbo stood reading that message for a moment before he knelt in front of the stone. He brought his forehead down to rest against the cold granite while staring at the ground in thought. All he had left of his _Abanul_ to lean on was an actual piece of rock, but it would have to do.

He reached into the breast pocket of his waistcoat then and pulled out a folded piece of paper. It was none other than the contract he had signed on his and Bofur’s last night together. Opening it below his bowed head, he reread the request that he had agreed to, then he lifted the sheet to his lips and placed a soft kiss on it. 

“That was for luck,” he murmured to the headstone.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The biggest challenge of writing this chapter was keeping it from basically turning into a novelization of the movies. That will be an even bigger challenge in the next chapter.
> 
> I must say though, it was fun to test myself on how well I remembered the dialogue from _An Unexpected Journey_ and _The Fellowship of the Ring_ before consulting the actual scenes on DVD.


	31. A Very Fond Farewell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bilbo says good-bye to a great many people and things.

Bilbo owed his latest transformation to Ori almost as much as he owed it to Bofur. The young scribe may not have been subtle thirty years ago, but he had been succinct; sitting safe in a hole for the rest of his life and pretending that he had never seen the world would make the hobbit no good to anyone, least of all to himself. 

That was what had spurred him to dig up his red journal and begin writing his account of the quest for Erebor. It was a more secure way to “share” his thoughts than speaking about them, and that comfort enabled him to discuss those fateful events much more personally. His intention was that his dear Frodo would be the person to read the book someday and take something special away from the story on its pages. Because of that, Bilbo could think of no better title for his memoirs than “There and Back Again,” the closing line of his nephew’s favorite childhood lullaby. 

He would have to mail it to the lad from Erebor when he was finished writing it.

He supposed that the way he had decided to part with Frodo was hardly the best, though he couldn’t think of one that was better. He had been a burden to the poor boy for long enough, forcing him to support the heartbroken Mad Baggins instead of leaning on him and to weather the criticisms that their neighbors flung at the skulking old adventurer. The last thing Bilbo wanted to do now was saddle him with guilt by making him choose between leaving his home and saying good-bye to his other uncle. Even so, the elder had said to Gandalf that he would tell Frodo of his escape plan, so some divulgence would have to be given. His Pinecone deserved a hint at least for being clever enough to have suspicions.

It was at his birthday party that Bilbo chose to reward that cleverness. He kept a slight distance from Frodo for the first part of the evening, trading pleasantries with his dozens of guests and captivating their children with the most lighthearted tales from his journey. All the while, he kept one eye on his nephew as the other Baggins danced to the band’s music and made merry with his friends in the same jovial fashion that Bofur no doubt would have.

After Bilbo’s stories for the children came a near run-in with the Sackville-Bagginses, who had apparently settled for his mailed invitation after all. Running from them gave him the perfect excuse to pull Frodo aside and into one of the party tents, where the two of them could speak privately. They did just that once Otho and Lobelia moved along.

“You’re a good lad, Frodo,” the Master of Bag End said heavily with his eyes barely on the youth. “I’m very selfish, you know.” 

He was ready for Frodo’s dumbfounded look. 

“Yes, I am,” he lurched on into his speech. “Very selfish. I don’t know why I took you in after your mother and father died, but it wasn’t out of charity.”

Bilbo turned over his other reasons at the time in his head, trying to come up with the better one to give. To his dismay, he couldn’t bring himself to say either. What had seemed like well-intended and logical grounds so long ago now felt wrong to share out loud. It felt as if he had wanted Drogo and Primula’s son for use as a game piece, for spiting his relatives and for keeping his dwarven partner from moving on with life after his passing. 

Whether or not that had ever been the case back then, it certainly wasn’t the case now. It certainly wasn’t the way that he wanted Frodo to remember him either. Mr. Baggins reached this conclusion in a split second of thought, and the next split second of gazing at his nephew brought back other memories. 

The sight of those tossled dark curls and those inquisitive blue eyes reminded him of a little hobbit lad whose mind used to always wander from the Shire even though his heart never did. He remembered a boy who wasn’t afraid to speak to wizards or to ask for bedtime stories about elves. He remembered a boy who loved to play with the mustache and ride on the shoulders of a dwarf whom he called Uncle Bofur.

Bilbo said the first thing that came to his mind when he saw that face and recalled those things.

“I think it was because...of all my numerous relations...you were the one Baggins who showed true spirit.”

As expected, his sentimentality was mostly lost on the youngster. 

“Bilbo, have you been at the Gaffer’s home brew?” Frodo asked, half scolding and half hoping.

“No,” the elder said defensively. After a thought, he revised, “Well, yes, but that’s not the point.”

He flashed his usual awkward smile before turning away. “The point is, Frodo...you’ll be alright.”

* * *

Mr. Baggins had predicted that the night of his party would be one to remember. One might have thought he had put down a large sum of coin on that outcome, because the old rascal saw to it that everyone in the Shire had a need to discuss the event afterwards.

Gandalf and his fireworks would become the evening’s mildest spectacle. Even Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took nearly leveling the partygrounds with a fiery, dragon-shaped rocket stolen from the wizard’s cart would seem mundane and predictable compared to what Bilbo planned to do. What would make the behavior of the party’s host so shockingly unexpected was that it started out as something entirely expected at such an occasion: his welcoming speech.

No one would have imagined that his party guests referred to him as Mad Baggins behind his back, the way they cheered and applauded as he made his way to the head of the tables. A mad fellow was just fine among Shirefolk, it seemed, so long as he could afford to throw such a celebration with so much free food and drink for them. Nevertheless, Bilbo took his place atop one of the ale kegs with a hearty grin to address his well-wishers.

He started by greeting every family present. Their responses were a great many more cheers and applause from each family, along with a comical interjection from Everard Proudfoot when Bilbo said “Proudfoots” instead of “Proud _feet_.” The reminder of it being Mr. Baggins’s one hundred and eleventh birthday even prompted a wave of sincere “Happy Birthday”’s, or so they all sounded sincere.

“Alas,” Bilbo continued graciously, “eleventy-one years is far too short a time to live among such excellent and admirable hobbits.”

He particularly enjoyed the sounds of unsuspecting flattery from his onlookers before he said his next piece.

“I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve!”

His voice turned sour halfway through the declaration, and a smattering of puzzled noises replaced the cheers and applause as his words sank in. The only face in the crowd that didn’t look lost after hearing them was Gandalf’s. 

Bilbo drank in that satisfying image for a second, then his hand retrieved something from his pocket and slipped unassumingly with it behind his back. That was when his cool demeanor started to chip away.

“I, uh...I have things to do,” he stammered. 

His eyes danced across that sea of faces staring back at him. He saw friends in their midst, the kind Hamfast Gamgee and a few Tooks and Brandybucks who had always thought well of him and his dwarf. Mostly though, he saw the faces that had looked on him and Bofur with disapproval—faces that had leered at them in the marketplace and in the taverns, as well as those that had cackled with pointed fingers at his poor _Abanul_ in the Ivy Bush. These were the faces that he had chosen to surround himself with in the Shire for sixty years, all because he hadn’t thought he could bear the faces of friends in Erebor who had suffered with him.

“I’ve put this off for far too long,” Bilbo muttered, perhaps to Bofur as much as to himself. 

To his party guests, he said, “I regret to announce this is the end. I’m going now. I bid you all a very fond farewell.”

At long last, his gaze moved down to the front row of the crowd. There sat Frodo, gazing back up at him with a light of understanding kindling in his bright blue eyes. Even then, with so much on his mind and so much unfriendly attention fixed on him, Bilbo felt nothing but joy at the sight of his lad. 

“Good-bye,” he whispered to Frodo with a smile.

That was when he slipped his magic ring onto his finger behind his back and vanished, leaving the rest of the partygoers gasping in alarm.

* * *

Exactly how he meant to leave his party was the one part of Bilbo’s plan that he hadn’t told Gandalf about. The hobbit knew what a liar he would prove himself to be by revealing that he still possessed the ring he claimed to have lost sixty years ago. His intention was to rush back up the hill to Bag End, gather up his walking stick and the knapsack he had already packed, and put his home far behind him by the time the wizard thought to look for him there.

As always though, Gandalf turned out to be a step ahead of him rather than a step behind.

The halfling nearly leapt out of his skin when he walked into his den to find his old friend looming there in wait for him. The Istari had the tone and stance of an indignant parent as he rained his lecture down on Bilbo, scolding him for his childish stunt and reminding him of how dangerous it was to use magic rings for play. Mr. Baggins might have cowered under those reprimands in his younger days, but his decades with Bofur had toughened his hide just enough. 

He casually brushed off the towering figure’s words, saying with cheek that the wizard was probably right as usual, and shifted the subject to Frodo without missing a beat. It wasn’t until Gandalf suggested leaving the ring to his nephew that the hobbit began to grow testy.

“Now that it comes to it, I don’t feel like parting with it,” Bilbo growled, clutching his golden trinket with his back to the bearded fellow. “It’s mine. I found it. It came to me!”

“There’s no need to get angry,” Gandalf cautioned him.

“Well, if I’m angry, it’s your fault!” Bilbo sneered over his shoulder.

The halfling looked to his ring once more. He knew deep down that the other was right yet again. There was no denying by now that his ring was bad for him. He hadn’t tried to deny that, not since the day when he had nearly placed it on Bofur’s finger. Bilbo had every reason to hurl that accursed piece of gold into his fireplace and set a flame to it, but the thought of losing it forever pained him more than the thought of keeping it.

There was no pain in keeping it, really. In fact, there was no feeling at all. Just as it had always been, he knew nothing of grief or guilt when he stared into its flawless, gleaming surface. He was almost grateful to his little prize for that, and as he reflected on the service it had done for him over the past nine years, he began to run his fingers over that shiny band as if it was Bofur’s hair.

“It’s mine,” Bilbo cooed to himself. “My only. My precious...”

Gandalf had yet to cease staring at him. “Precious? It’s been called that before, but not by you.”

The comment made Bilbo stop. There was no question in the hobbit’s mind of whom the wizard was referring to. How Gandalf knew of the ring’s previous owner was beyond his guess, but the realization that his “winning” it from Gollum was no longer a secret sent the smaller being into a rage. 

He spun around with a snarl to face his challenger. 

“What business is it of yours what I do with my own things?” he demanded, circling the larger being like a cornered beast.

“I think you’ve had that ring quite long enough,” the other said sternly as he circled in response.

“You want it for yourself!” the hobbit accused.

It was Gandalf’s turn to undergo a change at that. All light surrounding the magical being faded away as if he had consumed it, and the house creaked and groaned around him as if Bag End itself were trying to flee from him. The wizard’s voice deepened to an unearthly boom, and when he spoke, it filled the room with thunder.

“ _Bilbo Baggins!_ ” he roared. “ _Do not take me for some conjurer of cheap tricks! I am not trying to rob you!_ ”

Bilbo wasn’t so bold anymore. He flew back against the wall at the sound of the first bellow and stayed there, pinned in place by terror and an unnatural blast of wind. He remained that way still even when the lights returned, the house went quiet, and the kindness returned to Gandalf’s features. 

“I’m trying to help you,” the wizard clarified in his own friendly voice.

Every shard of strength that the hobbit had clung to since his adventure was gone from him after the outburst. Bilbo was a fragile little soul once more, and he believed he would collapse shivering to the floor and never rise again if he didn’t have his Bofur’s strong arms around him. He made due as best he could, stumbling to Gandalf with a whimper and throwing his arms around the taller being’s waist like a frightened child.

The wizard wrapped forgiving arms around him as well and patted that curly head. When his smaller friend relaxed, the Istari lowered himself on one knee before Bilbo to meet his eye.

“All your long years, we’ve been friends. Trust me as you once did,” Gandalf gently implored. “Let it go.”

Bilbo seemed to see reason for a moment. He agreed to the idea, saying that he should leave his ring to Frodo just like everything else, then he took up his knapsack and walking stick and rushed to the door to take his final leave. He was just moving his first hairy foot over the threshold when a chiding call from Gandalf stopped him in his tracks.

“Bilbo? The ring is still in your pocket.”

Caught again, the halfling turned to him with a nervous chuckle. “Oh, yes.”

He pulled the golden band from his pocket where he had slipped it, then he opened his fingers to study his prize in his palm. He continued studying it for a long time, and his hand soon began to shake.

The ring felt so heavy now—much heavier than it had felt sixty years ago, he swore. It had become a burden for him to bear in every possible way, he supposed.

How much misery had he endured for his love of it? How many days had he spent worrying about losing it and suspecting his neighbors and relatives of wanting to steal it? How many lies had he told to keep it a secret? All of those horrid things numbered too many for him to count, and the most horrid thought of all came to him when he realized he was holding the ring in the very hand that it had caused him to strike Bofur with.

The wretched trinket had caused him to hurt Bofur far worse and far more times than it had anyone else, and it had made him numb to so much of that. It had made him doubt his love’s lifelong belief that he, Bilbo Baggins, deserved to be happy.

The hobbit’s hand slowly tilted, and the ring that had clung to him for so long finally slipped from his grasp. It hit the floor with a thud that Gandalf heard and felt all the way from the parlor. Bilbo turned away from it then, still fighting the urge to reclaim it, and hurried out his door.

He was standing in his front yard and gazing up at his oak tree when he heard the wizard emerge from the house behind him. 

“I thought up an ending for my book,” the halfling decided. He turned to his companion. “‘And he lived happily ever after to the end of his days.’”

Gandalf knelt before him again with a much more relieved look. “And I’m sure you will, my dear friend.”

Bilbo looked upon his mentor with deep gratitude and held out his hand. “Good-bye, Gandalf.”

“Good-bye, Dear Bilbo,” the other said as he accepted that hand in both of his and shook it. He gave a wink then, earning a light-hearted smile that he hadn’t seen on Mr. Baggins in years.

With that, Bilbo went to his front gate and opened it for the last time. He closed it behind him without hesitation, then with the words of “The Road Goes Ever On” on his lips, he set off into the brisk darkness of the night and down the road to the East. He had almost made his way around the hill when his never failing ears picked up one last comment from Gandalf.

“Until our next meeting.”

* * *

Bilbo finished his song when he reached the top of the next hill. By then, things had begun to quiet down on the Party Field, which he had left in chaos after his abrupt disappearance. A few voices from the scattering crowd below drifted up to him, questioning where he had run off to this time and grumbling about how expected it had become of him to do the unexpected. He let out a scoff at those comments. They weren’t so unexpected either.

He was about to turn his back to the whole lot for good when he remembered that Frodo was likely still among them. From there, the thought crossed his mind that Bofur might not have approved of the way he had treated his guests. One could hardly call the terms he had parted with them on as good.

Bilbo twitched his nose as he contemplated this. In the end, he drooped his head in bashful admittance. A more humble expression colored his features when he looked up to the Party Field again.

He eventually moved along to resume his journey. Before he did though, another glimmer of inspiration sparked within him. Bilbo Baggins cast his final gaze upon Hobbiton, and as he observed the Shirelings far below, he quietly shared a song with a tune he knew well.

 _With all the strength I’ve yet to spend,_  
_And time I’ve made to tread a while,_  
_I’ll hold a promise I have made,_  
_To one who held me with a smile_  
_His whiskered cheeks and sparkling eyes,_  
_Will always have my heart in thrall_  
_So for his love I raise my cup,_  
_Good night and joy be with you all_

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to break up the dialogue scenes from _Fellowship of the Ring_ as much as I could for this chapter so it wouldn't feel too much like a rehash of the movie. It's strange to write so many scenes in a row that are borrowed almost word-for-word from the film, but I needed them to play out as actual scenes for the sake of my story rather than glossing over them with summaries.
> 
> Stay tuned for the epilogue. :)


	32. The Halls Beyond the Havens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Years after the War of the Ring, a hobbit and a dwarf are reunited and do some catching up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, I want to sincerely thank everyone who has read, commented, bookmarked, and left kudos on this story. This wouldn't have been nearly as fun or rewarding to write if it wasn't for readers like you showing how much you enjoyed it. :)

“So...Rivendell?”

“I meant to go all the way back to Erebor. Truly, I did. It was just that...well...”

“It doesn’t matter to me where you settled. ‘Wherever’ means wherever. If you were happy, then so am I, and so is he.”

“I _was_ happy in Rivendell, very much so, but...that wasn’t the only reason for my staying. My age caught up to me a bit in that valley, as it were. More than a bit, actually.”

“Because you didn’t have your ring anymore?”

The last of the hobbit’s composure faltered at that. His gaze dropped from the moonlit sea beyond the balcony where he sat. The dwarf beside him turned on the bench they were sharing to face him directly.

“It wasn’t your fault, Bilbo. That ring was something beyond any of us, and your only downfall was finding out too late when you had no other way to know.” After a heavy pause, he added, “It’s not the first time someone from our company fell for a piece of tainted treasure.”

“But Frodo...” the halfling struggled to say. “I should have known better than to leave it behind for him. He would still be happy without a care in the Shire today—maybe even with a family of his own—if it wasn’t for my foolishness.”

“It’s gone now,” the dwarf reminded him quickly but gently. “He and Gandalf both saw to that. What’s past is past. He doesn’t blame you for what’s happened, and regrets will do you no more good. Frodo _is_ happy now. All of them are, now that they're here.”

“There are so many faces here that I wasn’t expecting to see. Drogo, Primula, Balin, Óin...and...”

The hobbit couldn’t bring himself to name his last fallen friend from Moria. 

“Ori is happy now too,” the dwarf reassured him, “and he is safe. He’ll know nothing more of orcs or goblins in these halls. The only opponents he has to face now are Fíli and Kíli with their forks and spoons.”

The smaller figure laughed in spite of himself. The thought of Thorin’s nephews took him back to that fateful battle for Erebor, only for a lighter memory to overcome it.

“The oak tree was doing well, the last I saw of it,” he spoke up more cheerfully. “Frodo tells me it was still strong and growing when he took his final leave of Bag End.”

“And what happens to your hobbit hole now that he’s left it?”

The halfling shook his head. “It doesn’t concern me. Not anymore. I only hope that whoever should come to have it sees it as their home as much as I did, or else more.”

He tapped his foot, almost bald now from age, on the ivy-laced floor of the balcony. 

“This is my home now. It’s only fitting that I had to go on another adventure with Gandalf to find it, even if I had very little walking to do along the way.”

“I imagine the voyage across the sea was more agreeable than the one down the Forest River,” the dwarf said in jest.

“Much more agreeable, and the greeting at its end much more welcoming.”

“We’ve been waiting for you for a long time. Longer than we should have, we wagered. One hundred and fifteen years old is a rare feat for hobbits.”

“Well, I suppose it was better for me to arrive late than never.” The halfling sniffled slightly and raised warmer eyes to the seascape. “I’m here now, and there is peace again. That’s what matters. Peace and fond memories.”

His warmth turned inward. “No more regrets.”

The dwarf smiled at him and turned on the bench to glance back towards the hall. 

“We should return to the feast,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because your husband is waiting for us.”

Bilbo turned as well. Sure enough, the unmistakable silhouette of a dwarf in a floppy fur hat stood tentatively under the stone archway leading to the hall. Once the halfling’s eyes adjusted to the brilliant firelight from the banquet beyond that figure, Bofur’s face became clear to him. His spouse was beaming from ear to ear as always.

“Sorry,” Bofur said, shrinking with a touch of bashfulness. “The lads were all wondering where you’d gone.”

Bilbo sent him a knowing grin in return. 

“Oh, the lads,” he said unassumingly. “Of course. We wouldn’t want to keep them wondering. Eru knows Frodo's been more patient with me than he should have needed to be, and the whereabouts of Mr. Baggins always _has_ been a pressing matter among dwarves.”

“In your experience with them,” the dwarf seated with him on the bench mused. They stood together, then the taller figure offered the elderly hobbit an arm to escort him from the balcony. 

Bilbo accepted the offer with a chipper nod and allowed Thorin Oakenshield to walk him back to the archway.

They stopped when they reached Bofur. The other dwarf gladly stepped in then to support Bilbo himself. Powerful arms slid around the halfling with care and pulled him into a warm chest that he knew so well. Bilbo buried his face with the same gladness into the soft blue scarf that hung there, and his arms found their way around that much wider waist as well. His smile grew as he felt one of the other’s hands drift up to play with his restored marriage braids.

The giggle of a much younger fellow bubbled from him next when he felt the tickle of a mustache and two lips on the crown of his balding head.

“Your hair’s growing back already, Acorn,” Bofur murmured fondly into his scalp. “It’s coming in grey instead of white. I reckon you’ll be back to your not-so-old self in a few weeks.”

“I look forward to that,” Bilbo whispered so that only his husband could hear. “I’m very much ready to feel young again.”

The hobbit lifted his head to share a kiss with Bofur, then they touched their brows together and stayed that way in supportive comfort for a moment. It was Bilbo who pulled them back to the situation at hand.

“Let’s get back to the table, all of us,” he said eagerly, tugging Bofur’s sleeve and throwing Thorin a glance.

With that, Mr. Baggins and his _Abanul_ went arm-in-arm into the hall, savoring every step they took together, and the much more patient and pleasant King Under the Mountain followed them.

“I don’t want to keep the others waiting any longer,” Bilbo elaborated. “I’m overdue, and I’ve got so many stories to tell.”

*

_Of all the money that e’er I had,_  
_I spent it in good company_  
_And all the harm I’ve ever done,_  
_Alas, it was to none but me_  
_And all I’ve done for want of wit,_  
_To memory now I can’t recall_  
_So fill to me the parting glass_  
_Good night and joy be with you all_

_Of all the comrades that e’er I had,_  
_They’re sorry for my going away_  
_And all the sweethearts that e’er I had,_  
_They’d wish me one more day to stay_  
_But since it fell into my lot,_  
_That I should rise and you should not,_  
_I’ll gently rise and softly call,_  
_Good night and joy be with you all_

_If I had money enough to spend,_  
_And leisure time to sit awhile,_  
_There is a fair maid in this town,_  
_That sorely has my heart beguiled_  
_Her rosy cheeks and ruby lips,_  
_I own she has my heart enthralled_  
_So fill to me the parting glass_  
_Good night and joy be with you all_

*

The End

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regarding Bilbo's age, I had to change it from 131 to 115 because the 17 years between Bilbo leaving the Shire and Frodo leaving it in _The Fellowship of the Ring_ was done away with in the movies.
> 
> As for this chapter as a whole, I wasn't planning to have this in the story originally. I was going to end it on the previous chapter, with Bilbo finally leaving the Shire to go on another adventure, but the fangirl in me said there needed to be a happier ending.
> 
> I also had it in my head from the beginning that it was going to be Bofur having the conversation with Bilbo, but as I was writing this scene, I decided to throw in a little twist instead.
> 
> And lastly, the song at the end of the chapter is the actual, modern version of "The Farewell Cup": "The Parting Glass." I had to pay my respects to the song that inspired this story in the first place. :)


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